AU: Raditz, an Earthly Warrior

by KakarotSSj3

What-if Raditz had been sent to Earth instead of Kakarot? Alternate Universe beginning at the start of Dragon Ball. Read as Raditz becomes the Protector of Earth, facing both enemies you're familiar with and others you aren't, using Saiyan skills and smarts to his advantage. Retelling of DBZ, but w/ many differences. Edited better than ever 1/18/16. Rated M for later chapters. Rd/B

2. Raditz's Rampage

Chapter Two

Author's Note: Well, hello there you awesome readers –both old and new alike! How's it been going since I last wrote? Well, previously there was nothing more than just an incredibly short Author's Note in the place of what would become this chapter's content, but I decided to delete it all a while back, causing this chapter which was previously the third chapter of the story, to be moved back a single chapter along with the remainder of the story. Hopefully, it isn't too much of an inconvenience to those of you who've already read a good chuck of the story. Remember… leave a review on this story if there's something that you can't quite understand and I'll be sure to answer you in the following chapter –but leave reviews just for the heck of it as well, they honestly do motivate me to write more and more of this story and let me know what you guys want to see and what you think of the story… at the end of each chapter, I will try my very best to answer each and every review as best as I can :)

Disclaimer: I honestly do not own a single part of the amazing series that is Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super or especially not Dragon Ball GT. I also do not own any of the franchise's characters, techniques, settings, etc. Please acknowledge that each of those things are owned by Funimation, Toei Animation, Fuji TV, and/or especially Akira Toriyama. If I did own the series, this would not be a FANfiction… however, please support the official release.

A vein unconsciously revealed itself on the leftmost corner of Raditz's forehead, throbbing as the raven haired warrior felt an –albeit well needed –painful, exhilarating grunt slowly force its way out of his teeth baring scowl, said Saiyan having finally come to complete the six hundredth of the push-ups that made up a portion of his daily training session. Fighting through the obviously showcased pain that he was feeling surge through each and every last inch of nicely chiseled –though extremely tensed and strained –muscle, the jet-black haired teenager slowly pushed himself back to his feet, picking himself off of the surface of the grassy ground that he registered as his 'natural training mat'. Raditz could literally feel each and every beady drop of sweat perspiring across not only his lightly coated in dirt and debris palms, but also leaving an entire ocean of sweat building around and coating his entire face in all of its salty wet contents, peacefully serving as a way to cool off the boy's overworked body, teardrops of the salted contents even managing to drip from the bottom of his chin onto the field of pastured grass before Raditz. That was not all however… the second skin of sweat had not decided on stopping just at cloaking the Saiyan's face –nope, the remainder of said Saiyan's body was also deemed a host for the thin layer of bodily wetness, making their way from both the blazing rays of golden sunlight as well as the continuous overload of work that Raditz put himself through on a daily basis.

Still, the fortress of sweat that coated him was absolutely the last of his… worries… one would say. Along with being glazed in more than enough moisture to quench the throats of each and every inhabitant of a small African village, the incredibly well-built temple that Raditz called his body had taken to ache in a pain that the tailed warrior deemed himself nothing if not incredibly familiar with –one that his entire life revolved around. One that he was all too accustomed to already at such a young age to be completely honest with himself. Each and every pound of muscle on his body burned in a fierce mixture of both pain and excitement, flooded in fatigue and soreness… but still, he could have brought it upon himself to carry on with his continuous display of workouts and exercises which he had been performing for a solid two hours already, at the very least –if only it had not have been for the acutely burning aftereffects and pain of carrying on while his muscles had confirmed that they had done enough for the time being would bring. Putting those things lightly, the entirety of his well-developed and ripped arms, biceps and all, were literally dancing in a cloak of flames as he spoke, the pain being tolerable yet still preventing the active Saiyan teenager from carrying on with more of his continuous push-ups, peaking out at about six hundred to say the very least.

It never really came to the aid of the situation of the intense workout that the fact was true that the custom Saiyan-made Battle Armor, boots, and wristbands that Raditz had taken to wear in even the fiercest of Mother Earth's temperatures turned out to be in fact weighted –adding about an extra twenty pounds each to the weight that Raditz was forced to work with during his training, totaling up to exactly an additional hundred pounds that he was forced to compromise with and lift off of the ground with each rep that he completed. Yeah, this would more than likely make even the mightiest of bodybuilders drop from exhaustion after probably a single completed rep, but who could blame them? Raditz, on the other hand, knew for a fact that totaling more than 1.5x his normal weight would easily prove to make his training and workout procedures much harsher and extreme those those of any other being's on the face of the entire planet, that it would also benefit him and prove rewarding enough in exchange for the pain in each muscle upon his body… as with all of the extra weight it would serve to make the warrior's intense training rituals and workouts much more efficient and gratifying worthwhile than those under any standard circumstances.

The tailed warrior that was the final Saiyan left breathing in the entire galaxy, if not universe, could not help but force himself to change that clenched toothed expression that stained his face to more of a sly smirk, deeming himself pretty well satisfied with the outcome of his workout. Bringing forward a husky forearm packed with worn-out muscle tissue, Raditz brought the limb to the top of his forehead, using it to wipe away the salty blanket of sweat that had decided on tinting his well-toned skin. Thoroughly damping himself free of a majority of the perspiring, moist sweat tainted all across his muscular body, the long-haired Saiyan Warrior slowly turned to face the manmade porch where his martial arts mentor –as well as lifelong guardian –sat silently to himself, not moving a single muscle as he lied resting his aging body at the table under the shade of his cottage, watching as Raditz began to gradually approach him from his training place. Grandpa Gohan, as Raditz tended to refer to the aging martial artist whenever it was that he found himself not in the mood to say 'old-timer' or 'old man', was nothing short of a martial arts master, trained by some of the greatest of martial artists in his younger days. He had been silently watching as the teenage Saiyan continued to steadily train at that incredibly quick and hurried pace that he knew Raditz was notorious for, the young combatant rapidly launching punch after punch… throwing kick after kick into the sternum of an imaginary opponent composed of only the Earth's prized oxygen at a speed that even the mightiest of normally trained Earthlings would have no chance at all of keeping up with in the span of only a couple of seconds.

Honestly, Gohan was actually pretty pleased yet just as astonished by the boy's ever-increasing strength, or to be more precise with anyone –the tremendous rate of change in the Saiyan's power –actually, it was nothing short of extraordinary… possibly even amazing to say the very least over the situation. To make a long story as short as possible –in only slightly under the time frame of a decade of years, the teenage Saiyan's total strength had already managed to increase to total up at more than half of his own full power level… it might not have sounded all that impressive with just words, but if you take into account the fact that a fifteen year old child had taken to achieve a level of strength that had taken him, a well-trained master of the martial arts –one of the greatest to ever step foot on the face of the Earth to be more exact –more than fifty years to obtain. There was no doubt whatsoever in the elderly martial artist's mind that his own strength and fighting abilities would eventually be surpassed and overshadowed by Raditz… possibly even before the latter could even pass the age of twenty-one years old –that much was as obvious as the ocean was blue… very obvious to say the absolute least. These Saiyans –man, these Saiyans certainly were something else when it came to the aspect of power or err… anything that connected to fighting and training in general –almost as if they lived for the natural thrill of the sport of fighting as an absolute whole to be more precise. Saiyans –he had never knew anybody who would be oh so ready and prepared to train or fight at even the drop of a hat… the earliest of mornings. If anything was true in this world, it would be that young Raditz did indeed live for the art of training and increasing his own battle power and strength, absolutely loving the challenge of the occasional sparring session between the both of them –craving a challenger much more powerful than he himself was.

Gohan himself could somehow relate to Raditz's own thirst for improvement in his strength… he had also had a similar attitude to the young Saiyan in his youthful days, back before his coat of matte black hair whitened and his skin had taken to wrinkle. He was a brilliant martial artist… a prodigy fighter at his age and one of only two students of the legendary Turtle Hermit, chosen only because of his superiority over other young martial artists in his teenage years. For years… decades even, he traveled the entirety of the planet, using what he had been taught by the mighty Turtle Hermit to find challenges of his own, besting dozens of men and women in sparring matches left and right. He had even registered in a World Martial Arts Tournament of his own… decades ago while he was in the prime of his martial arts career. He had easily made it all the way to the finals… but the fight that awaited him there was possibly the most thrilling, dangerous fight of his life. He had been matched up against a student of the Crane School… a famed murderer in the form of a man that went by the name of Tao Pai Pai, the brother of the leader of the Crane School. In just that match, he had been beaten to the edge of his life... nearly killed in just a couple of energy attacks, and even worst –humiliated before the entire of the tournament's crowd. He could have very well died that way, hadn't it have been for the World Tournament's rules of not being able to kill an opponent in the ring. It was there… then and there that he learned to control his cocky, overconfident attitude in matches, never underestimating the might of any opponent. Hopefully, it wouldn't take something as life-threatening as that to satisfy the young Saiyan's taste for battles to the near-death.

Raditz felt as his fatigue and thirst got the absolute best of him, the Saiyan hastily stepping towards the wooden table where Gohan awaited his presence, having practically dragged his exhausted body from his field of battle to the very seat where his snow white bearded guardian of twelve years calmly sat to himself, watching each and every move that Raditz made during his training. Closing the distance between himself and the table within only a fraction of a complete second, Raditz swiftly lunged at the wooden framework of the dining table at such a speed unrivaled by very few others, practically savaging for the giant glass pitcher that awaited him on the board's surface hoisting an entire gallon's worth of sugary, ice cold and refreshing lemonade that seemed to be basically pleading to relieve and quench his parched esophagus. As soon as his hands had established a perfect grasp on the condensing handle of the pitcher's glasswork, Raditz brought it upon himself to hunker down in the slightest, using the remainder of his decreasing strength to bring the entire jug of the lemon-containing beverage to his yearning mouth, thirstily guzzling the entireness of the refreshing cold, sweetened mixture of golden perfection down his throat in just a single, over-exaggerated gulp, thrusting the liquid down his throat at such a speed that it was inevitable that a bit of the sticky, yet purely magnificent liquid was left dripping from the Saiyan's jawline onto the young warrior's set of scratched Training Armor, the salted sweat mixing with the sweet, tangy lemonade as the latter dripped onto the sweat-coated jumpsuit that Raditz wore under the protective set of Saiyan-made armor.

Completely the final of his intense gulps from the glass pitcher that originally hoisted about an entire gallon's worth of golden, ice cold lemonade, Raditz lightly placed the completely drained of its content glasswork in which he had finished sipping his worth of lemonade in less than even five thorough seconds back upon the wooden table it had originally rested on, feeling a fair bit of his inner fatigue and thirst having been instantly replenished as the sweetened liquid glazed his throat, flooding his stomach in its contents. Raditz then found himself turning back to face the grassy meadow of training field which he deemed himself nothing if not familiar with –having been trained in this exact area for nearly two-thirds of the entirety of his life, from the age of six to that of his age now, a solid and healthy fifteen years going on sixteen in just a matter of a few more months. This was the exact place that he had learned to achieve better control over his ki and energy, along with a number of better fighting stances to use at his disposal… thanks entirely to the aid of his caretaker, his adoptive grandfather Gohan. It was here that he had even learned to harness his ki in order to fly (let's say that he knew very little of how to do so while on Planet Vegeta, shall we?), although it may have taken a broken arm or two in the process to effectively learn the technique. This was the once place where he spent the majority of his life after the passing of his entire family and race as a whole, out in these peaceful fields training himself into the Saiyan Warrior destined to best the galactic bastard of a tyrant that had taken to eradicate the remainder of his race from the face of the universe… one of these days. Hopefully, this exact place would one day serve as the final resting place of Frieza –one day the tyrant's own lifeless and decapitated body and naughtily severed head could stain the grass of the Mount Paozu fields in its cold, dark purple colored blood with him standing victoriously over the beheaded Arcosian's seemingly lifeless body.

Proceeding over to the main headquarters of his training sessions, the nicely cooled and shaded area of a nearby oak tree large enough to shade a majority of the sun at all times of the day, Raditz took it solely upon himself to both proudly and skillfully carry on with his daily training, getting back onto the timed workout schedule that he endured through each and every day after that godly drink of incredibly tasty and refreshing golden lemonade that Gohan's gourmet skills had to offer to him. After another hour and a half or possibly even two filled with nothing less than vigorously completing a numerous and extraordinary amount of superhuman exercises and workouts that were bound to make even the most fittest and well-trained of Humans yelp out in intense pain and discomfort after the first minute, Raditz finally found it upon himself to muster up the energy needed to push his intensely burning, heavily fatigued body off of the dusted ground once again, an entirely new coat of sweat making its existence known upon each and every last inch of his well-defined, brawny muscles –leaving behind a slippery shine gleaming upon the sharp, impenetrable body of the Saiyan. Of course he was fully aware of the fact that as a result of such a workout that he would find himself and his entire body as sore as could be hours in the night and –more likely than not –the next couple of days at the maximum… that much was pretty inevitable. Still, Raditz was still the type of martial artist that was capable of fully enjoying the time in which he trained for hours at a time at a pace beyond that of his standard limits on his time enjoy, not a single care overcoming the matter of the severity of the consequences that were sure to overtake his body as a result of this hobby of his. He honestly did not know… maybe –more than likely –this was due utterly to the fact that he had a complete amount of Saiyan blood coursing proudly through each and every artery or vein in his body, fueling him to become the strongest that he could possibly bring himself to be –do what no other Saiyan had done and defeat the dreaded Lord Frieza, Destroyer of Worlds.

Of each and every injury that he had been forced to take on due to his ignorance towards resting between his training sessions as a much younger and inexperienced fighter, Raditz seemed to undoubtedly recall the time when he was only about seven years old at the absolute oldest, learning how to harness his ki and use it to fly through the skies, as precisely as the back of his own hand. He had been quite the impatient… zealous child that would more times than not get too far ahead of himself, taking on way too much than he could at the time, causing him to overdo it during his training and fall from an altitude of nearly forty feet to the rigid hard ground when he could not bring it upon himself to concentrate the entirety of his ki effectively when he was hoping to fully master the Flight technique on a single session, walking away from the incident with a fractured fibula bone to go along with a mildly broken collarbone. Needless to say, it had taken an entire three and a half hours of being stuck in the slimy green fluids of the Rejuvenation Chamber for him to be completely healed and even then, he had been forced to wear a cast for a solid three or four days. Just the single thought of the aggravation and trouble that had been brought forth by himself as he hoped to train as hard as he had pre-injury with a casted shoulder and a leg brace upon his left leg at the same time was more than enough to cause a slightly amused, toothless smirk to paint itself upon the young Saiyan's otherwise emotionless face. Pretty much needless to say… he had not only failed miserably at the task he'd placed upon himself, but he had also further aggravated the two injuries, unknowingly adding on to the time needed to recover the damaged limbs in the restraints.

Raditz's eyes shifted to the direction of Gohan as he carried on with the next part of his afternoon workout, the Saiyan beginning to engage in a fair bit of 'small talk' –as the Earthlings called it –with the second of his mentors and teacher… if you counted his biological father of course… his adoptive grandfather that went by the name of Son Gohan. Without this very man in his life, it was pretty obvious that Raditz would not have become the young man he truly was. He wouldn't have learned to properly read or count more advanced to the level of an Earthling his age, nor do any Human rituals if he hadn't have been for the elderly martial artist, nor would he have learned things over the subjects that these feebly Earthlings deemed quite important for one to learn –mathematics, history, science –or even knowledge over the Saiyan race and any and all things that he needed for his own survival. Not tooting his own horn or anything big, but Raditz sure as hell would not have become one hell of a cook hadn't it have been for Gohan's teaching in that department either. More than likely, he would have been either killed or purely insane if his Attack Ball had not have been found and he had not been cared for by the elderly Earthling when he'd first landed upon the planet nearly an entire decade ago. But probably –not realistically –most importantly, he would not have blossomed into as great of a warrior and fighter as he was now if it had not been for the aged martial arts master's steady training and humble guidance from the very first day he had dwelled in the same home as he.

"So old-timer," Raditz began to speak, his coal black colored eyes looking up to uninterestedly faced the beady eyed individual that was deemed a second father to him, still taking care to carefully and perfectly loosen up his body for another one of his infamous spars against another of his imaginary foes, performing the very first of his post-workout stretches to get the 'juices flowing' before he kicked some imaginary ass out there. "As I always find myself asking… I know that you are already fully aware of the request that you are about to be asked of. So not to waste either of our times I will ask but a single time… will the two of us have another of our enjoyable spars this evening? The sun has already lowered from the sky a bit and it's just the perfect day one would say… not too intensely hot or insanely chilled for that delicately wrinkling skin or those brittle, weathered bones of yours." The voice of Raditz carried on, said Saiyan having taken to sarcastically bait at the factor of reclining and escalating age on his matured martial arts master's part. As he spoke, Raditz's eyes seemed to not even bother with the task of looking up to catch eyesight with the elderly martial artist as he carried on with more and more of his exercises, almost as if this was something that he deemed himself all too accustomed with, giving off the impression that he honestly did not give a single care for the final answer that he would be given too much at all. Basically as if this was train with somebody with proper experience or train on his own. Either way, there was no way in Hell that he would find himself backing down from training, sparring partner or not.

"I must apologize young Raditz, but do I need not say that I personally do not feel up to the task of sparring every other day with you like I did in my younger days, Son Raditz," Gohan hesitantly began to respond after an entire minute filled with properly arranging and going over his possible thoughts and answers. Although it seemed to have come nearly unconsciously on Raditz's part, Gohan could have sworn that he caught an eyeful of the slightest of growls bark out from the frown displayed upon his Saiyan grandson's unsatisfied face, a sound he had literally grown nothing if not completely familiar with –the sound that just so happened to turn out to be the typical sound of your 'everyday' irritated and disappointed Saiyan teenage male. He was more than conversant over nearly each and every detail involving the Saiyan race –having been forced to raise a member of the mighty warrior race from early childhood through a fair bit of his teenage years already – including the love that Planet Vegeta's people had when it came to training and fighting alike, treasuring the two brutal actions as if they were the greatest things since sliced bread… as if they were Gods of some kind. According to his own understanding, the only thing that could possibly surpass the intense love that the tailed sapiens had for said actions would have to be the cravingly intense and passionate adoration that the intergalactic warriors had for food, eating as a whole to be more precise, no matter the type of food that they were presented with to savor turned out to be –from the fattiest and sweetest of sweets and treats to the healthiest and healthiest and bitterest of vegetables –they would eat it all without leaving so much as a speck of crumbs behind. "After all, the both of us know for an absolute fact that I am, unfortunately, no longer the brilliant martial artist that I once was in my much younger prime. Now, as I slowly enter the age of ninety-one in just a few short months, I can't even bring it to sparring for more than five minutes without tiring out and aching in bed. Who knows, I may have only just a single year, month, week, or even less than another hour remaining in the realm of the living and I'm not a doctor or anything… but as far as I am concerned, fighting to the point where half of my bones are fractured and the other half aching in pain while I could hardly breathe will do nothing more than make me more of an easier target for the cold clutches of death. Father Time always has a way to catch up with his target –even the most intelligent and strongest of us, Raditz –I'm sure that you'll learn that one of these days." The wise, past-his-prime Human fighter finished off, capping off the segment of his life story as his small black eyes caught sight of Raditz carrying on with his mid-afternoon stretches, trying his best to cloud his mentor's words from his mind as he trained. To his side, Gohan warily held a firm grip upon the heated clay mug filled with an entire eight ounces of his own, famously brewed and prepared, steamy and hot green tea, a beverage that anybody who knew even the slightest about the aged martial artist that was Gohan knew that the man had to have a fresh cup of at least a solid three times during the course of a regular day, his eyes remaining completely peeled on the brilliant site of his one and only trained student and disciple, Son Raditz, training to his heart's lovely content, carrying on with his combat training at absolutely the quickest and hardest of paces that one could ever dare bear witness to in the entirety of their lifespan.

As Gohan's words flooded his ears, the black maned Saiyan Warrior that was Raditz immediately began to grunt under his breath, unconsciously and instinctively cursing up an entire hurricane of inappropriately spoken words in both the standard language of Earth –English, as well as the ancient Saiyan language that was Saiyru, the language that his people were known to use at their disposal from time to time whenever speaking among themselves, which he had taken it upon himself to nicely learn and practically master to his peak at such a young age early in his childhood, with a bit of assistance from both his deceased father and Gohan of course. While he did not actually bother himself on using the prehistoric, endangered language that his forefathers had established and used in their time on an everyday basis as some older and more experienced Saiyans would intuitively have done before the near genocide of their race, whenever Raditz had the pleasure of finding himself in a state of high frustration or anger at someone or something as an whole, said Saiyan would usually begin to practically grumble out a number of things in the native language of his endangered people –the entire concoction of actions being one of the numerous of things that he had unintentionally picked up from a similar habit of his father years ago before the latter's death at the hands of the Cold Empire's own, Prince Frieza.

Onto other things, the Human whom had taken to serve as Raditz's caregiver and martial arts teacher would almost always respond to the request for the both of them to take part in a thrilling martial arts spar with some sort of comment over the fact that he was rapidly –yet somehow still slowly –growing in age and getting older and older with each passing second, unable to fight like he had in his younger days as a martial artist… or another response would be in the form of about how he was not quite feeling the spark to fight on that certain day –one or the other would be the answer that Raditz would be given nearly each and every time the long haired martial artist would find himself asking the elderly Gohan for an old-fashioned spar between the both of them. Nowadays, the possibility of receiving a 'yes' in response to his request was almost as rare as the possibility of the entire Saiyan race being brought back as a whole… almost next to impossible to say the very least.

'What I don't get is how the hell is he expecting me to grow stronger if there is no way for me to test my strength, nobody to beat me around or get beat on. I mean –he's the only person on the face of this entire planet that I wouldn't plain out crush and cripple right away with even the most restrained of punches and here he is prancing about and acting like he's going through a fucking midlife crisis or something,' Raditz silently uttered under the protection of his own steamed breath, speaking to himself between highly exaggerated grunts as he turned his lightly scarred and strained back completely to Gohan's line of sight, not even wanting to exchange a single half of a full second of eye contact with the bearded man that was only Human, yet powerful enough to tussle with a Saiyan child. Yeah… he might have been the slightest bit of stubborn –so what though, who cared? He had a need to grow in power and become much stronger than he already was… stronger than what many thought was physically possible for a single being to be, if he even wanted to possibly begin to hope to stand the slightest chance against a being of such power and authority like the dreadful self-proclaimed 'Emperor of Space' –yet alone come out victorious in a battle against said galactic overlord any time soon.

Having nothing else for him to do, Raditz began to think a few things over in the overworking and complicated storage place he called a mind as he angrily slammed a highly trained and powerful fist into the giant infrastructure of a boulder that stood only mere inches before him, each and every strike that marked itself upon the enlarged rock managing to chip off a decent amount of loosened pebbles from the larger composure, slowly grinding the entirety of the compacted structure of rocks to dust. I the nine and about a half years or so in which the Saiyan had found himself living off of and residing on the face of Planet Earth, Raditz's battle power had barely managed to increase from its original display of a level of 22 units. Honestly, if he was still living upon Planet Vegeta had Frieza not had destroyed his entire race and homeplanet, a power level registering at that low of a level would have definitely been the absolute joke of the planet, even among low-class Saiyans Warriors. There was no doubt whatsoever that even his own father would be extremely embarrassed by his son's pathetic display of a battle power, disowning him then and there… on the spot without a second thought about it whatsoever. Who knows… maybe then he would be mercilessly exiled from his homeplanet just because of the fact that his power level was so low, just as the King of the Saiyan's second and youngest child –a son whose name Raditz could not bring himself to remember at the time –had been at only the low age of two years old just because of his power level had been labeled as 'insufficient to be of royalty blood whatsoever'. Plus, there was also the fact that if Frieza had easily and mercilessly managed to kill his father, Bardock –a Saiyan whose power level was noted to peak out at slightly above 10,000, the highest ever recorded for a Saiyan of his rank, that of a low-class –with nothing more than the flick of a wrist, then that absolutely meant for a fact that Frieza could and would be able to easily beat and slowly kill him as he was now with no trouble at all… more than likely even with both of his hands tied as tightly behind his back if that was the way that the tyrant pleased to execute the sole survivor of the Saiyan race he had tried without breaking a single sweat to put an end to. 'I-If… Kakarot… was… still… alive… maybe… then… he… would… have… made… a… better… training partner… than… this… pathetic… excuse… for… a… dedicated… warrior! Dammit!' Raditz silently thought to himself through gritted fangs and clenched fists, his unstably contained fury and will to train causing him to launch a closed fist of compacted muscle at the tremendous stone before him between each word that he spoke to himself, holding back a far bit of his power as he pulled back each punch he threw in an extremely careful attempt not to shatter the unyielding boulder to crushed pebbles and dust in just a small number of solid hits on his part. On the finale of his inner thoughts to himself however, the young Saiyan, fueled by the sheer remembrance of his father's dying words and wishes put onto display in the note he had left behind for his eldest son, along with the thoughts of his entire –now completely eradicated from the universal plane whatsoever –family… his father, the Saiyan Warrior, Bardock… young Kakarot, his six year younger brother –he hadn't even lived an entire week before the death of himself and all of his people… Gine, the passionate, insanely kindhearted family woman who had taken to give birth to both him and Kakarot –perishing from the realm of all living people single-handedly due to the horrendous feats of simply one sick, bloodthirsty individual –a terrible, disastrous tyrant that had ruthlessly drew his arm back as far as it could go without fear, harnessing an exhilarating deal of power and strength into a single burst of energy, caring for no lives lost because of his actions whatsoever. Not even a complete second later, the tailed Saiyan found himself ramming the entirety of his battle-hardened fist clearly through the tremendous mound of stone and dust, using much more strength and force than originally anticipated, desolating the boulder into nothing more than a devastated pile of dismembered rubble as a barely translucent blanket of dust surrounded the place where the boulder once stood completely to itself.

Following this, Raditz did not even try to hold back the slightly disappointed tone that surfaced from his vocal cords and through his mouth, the loss of words releasing from his mouth in the form of a devastatingly dissatisfied and unpleased sigh at a volume just loud enough for Gohan's aging ears to pick up and register. Following the outburst, Raditz immediately got back on track, getting back to continuing his workout, unable to hide the fact that he was obviously still far beyond pissed off and highly frustrated by Gohan's refusal to cooperate and participate in a good spar between the two martial artists. Of these exercises, each and every last one of the tiring maneuvers consisted of the Saiyan performing an out of this world amount of his standard, everyday exercises –pushups, crunches, squats, you know… -all done consecutively and while an enormously large boulder would be assigned to casually and sturdily stand its place on the ground, perfectly placed to restrain the fur-coated, dark brown colored appendage that all Saiyans possessed, the tail that sported from the longhaired Saiyan teenager's backside and was perfectly pinned to the ground and restrained from movement by the enlarged assembly of stone. To be completely honest with oneself, Raditz had not even been the one to come up with the idea of training the furred appendage that was once the weakness of so many of his own race's people –he had never even worried about the weakness or thought that he would have to train his tail in all of his lifetime. Truth be told, he had only been gifted with the idea by his mentor, Gohan, just a couple of months back, sometime between his fourteenth and fifteenth birthday, on a day where the two of them had been sparring to their heart's content. After the elderly, highly experienced Human martial artist had easily managed to come across and find out about the highly dangerous weakness that the tail of a Saiyan brought forward onto its hoister, momentarily sapping all of the strength and energy from Raditz's entire body as soon as an opponent would grasp ahold of the Saiyan's exposed tail in the middle of a match, Gohan had come up with the idea of Raditz training his tail to neglect that one weakness of his, putting it through a number of things in an attempt to force the furred limb much stronger than before and more than resilient enough to be unaffected by being grasped, therefore eliminating a limitation that was known throughout Planet Vegeta as the most devastating and brutal of weaknesses of nearly each and every low-class Saiyan on the face of the planet. Before the race's nearly complete eradication by Frieza nearly an entire decade ago, it was pretty much a well-known fact that the moment that an untrained tail of any Saiyan's had been firmly grasped or pulled with a large amount of force, the attacked Saiyan's strength would almost instantaneously rush from their body, a severely harsh and extraordinary amount of pain then going on to surge through the tailed warrior's body, a pathetic feeling as if they were now completely helpless, fatigued… weak, one would say. Thankfully, the training program had actually proved itself worthy of carrying on to the Saiyan, going exactly according to plan for Raditz for as long as he had been going at it. Originally, as soon as the tremendous mound of stone had been placed upon his tail, each and every feeling of pain imaginable and then some would flood Raditz's entire body as if on command, allowing him to do no more than ten push-ups tops –IF he found himself lucky enough, but now –now, he would hardly notice the boulder whenever he fully completed each of his workouts, even going so far as to have to heighten the complete mass and weight of the boulder about once every month or two nowadays… having grown completely accustomed to the workout after all of the pain and sweat that it had taken to train his tail –waking up to the exhilarating pain coursing through his furred tail and everything in between. Not only that though, the young Saiyan had also took to using his tail as a sort of a balance whenever it was he meditated to himself, managing to put much more work on the furred appendage by forcing the extra limb to support the entirety of his weight, each and every muscular part of his perfectly trained and chiseled body being used as a weight for his Saiyan tail.

Gohan silently sat to himself in the incredibly worn out, entirely handmade wooden rocking chair that peacefully resided on his porch the very same one that his student and adoptive grandchild had made for him a few years back and given to him as a birthday present, years ago when the Saiyan was still in his early preteen years. The bearded Earthling watched on as his first –and only –student, someone who was literally like a son to him, carried on with the most intense of training one could possibly put themselves through, a feeling of both pride and happiness flowing through the rollercoaster he knew as his mind, the man coming to realize just how far the alien teenager from another planet had managed to come in the ten years during which he had resided in the wooden cottage in the depths of the forest alongside only him, the foreign being taking the time to train at his absolute hardest each time he was given the opportunity. In these years, he had been the one to witness the boy evolve from the extremely self-centered, highly annoying, and egotistic little brat whose form was all sorts of messed up and unperfected when he first landed on Earth to a Saiyan Hormone-filled teenager that was just as ignorant as he was prideful, showcasing above average fighting and combat skills with the potential to take down almost any person who would hope to take him on in a fight. Now, here the Saiyan was now… closing in on the next step of his life, becoming a man nearing he golden age of manhood, just two short years from doing so to be more precise. He had truly blossomed into a magnificent and amazing martial artist through the years, taking it upon himself to nearly perfect each and every technique and fighting skill that he called his own. While there was no doubt an entire world left for the teenager to learn of and from, Gohan knew with a passion that in the long run, if anybody on the face of the entire planet had the potential to become of of the Earth's –if not THE Earth's –mightiest warriors, that title would have no other competitor than Raditz if the Saiyan continued to take it upon himself to carry on with his training even farther after he had surpassed the goal he had momentarily set for himself, exceeding him in power. Anyway, there was no doubt whatsoever that Raditz had all of the potential and power needed to become either the planet's strongest protector... or the worst thing to ever happen to it –Planet Earth and all of its inhabitants' worst nightmare.

"Raditz," Gohan began to utter, slowly arising from the cushioned center of his wooden seat. He was fully aware of where the young warrior was coming from involving that intense need for a powerful opponent and the need for increasing his own strength –honestly, he would more than likely be the same exact way… would feel the very same if he, himself, was the one in Raditz's position –the sole survivor of a race that had nearly perished from existence after a genocide of his people. It was apparently obvious that Raditz felt the need to avenge each and every one of his fallen brethren, he absolutely desired to slay the monster that had deemed itself brave enough to wipe out an entire planet of warriors without taking it upon himself to tie up any and all loose ends that were bound to arise because of said actions. Reaching down to grasp onto the firm handle of his teacup, Gohan patiently awaited, taking another light sip of his green tea as he watched Raditz's motionless body slowly turn to meet him eye-to-eye, putting aside the stubbornness of said Saiyan. "Tomorrow evening, the two of us will partake in a quick spar after dinner. I suggest that you train at a much harder pace than you ever have tonight… because I am all but ready to see just how powerful you have grown since the last time we sparred," The aging martial arts master stated, finishing off his statement as he arose from his wooden rocking chair to walk back into the cottage that he owned, having just reluctantly agreeing to the sparring request he had been gifted with just minutes earlier.

Raditz was left standing outside of the inhabited cottage solely by himself, in the middle of nowhere but the towering trees that made up the eastern Mount Paozu forest area. As the words of his mentor began to soak themselves into the Saiyan's mind, Raditz completely failed at attempting to hold back the thrill and happiness he was feeling at the response that Gohan had given, a slight grin showcasing each and every single one of the warrior's teeth slowly managed to reveal itself to the public eye, the thin strips of flesh that were Raditz's lips curling upward to form a toothy grin upon said Saiyan's face. Not even a complete second later, Raditz felt as all of his strength and power began to exhilarate through his bloodline at a thousand miles per hour, every last ounce of his power being let loose as a flaming aura of purple and white flames ignited around his perfectly built display of muscle. The two vibrant colors flared vigorously, sparking madly and brilliantly around the Saiyan's well-toned and muscular body, each color facing off for dominance in the form of harmless flames cloaking Raditz's body, the sound of the dirt beneath Raditz's feet cracking apart and splintering apart the mound of ground emitting from the crumbling ground as stray bits of loosened stone split from the ground up, hovering inches off of the ground due to the sheer force invested in Raditz's rupturing power. As the thought of sparring with the very man who had basically taught him a large percentage of everything that he now knew, the same same man whom he had been training under for nearly an entire decade or so continued to course through the Saiyan's usually determined and unusually stoic mind, Raditz did not even dare to remove the grin painted upon his face, beginning the remainder of his training as soon as Gohan had taken to disappear behind the closed door of his cottage. After all, he was already more than ready enough to show Gohan just how much he had managed to improve over the last couple of years and the fruit of his training's efficiency in battle.

---

THE NEXT DAY

Gohan delicately placed the finishing touches of flavor onto the savory, delicious dinner which he had prepared solely for the taste buds of himself and Raditz, lightly sprinkling the last pinches of the parsley upon the gigantic king salmon that was deemed unfortunate enough to become the evening meal of a growing teenage Saiyan and him as well. The hickory smoked salmon that the both of them would be thoroughly enjoying was truly a delicious work of art, one courtesy of Raditz himself –the Saiyan having hunted down and caught what Gohan deemed the largest catch that he had gotten from the shallowed creek just an hour's walk from the cottage in a while, weighing in at slightly above seventy-five total pounds of watery scales and fish guts. Once again, Gohan was not necessarily all too surprised at just how little the damage that the massive aquatic creature had sustained it its proper defeat turned out to be, he was honestly already all but familiar with just how efficient the young Saiyan could take down any animal that he deemed its target. If one had never witnessed Raditz's earlier attempts at hunting, it would be take a miracle for one to believe that there had once been a time period in which Raditz would find his way back home after nearly an hour's long tussle with the self-proclaimed 'King of the Creek', which would in turn be nearly torn to complete shreds thanks to nothing more than the numerous amount of punches and blows that it had originally taken to end the scaled beast's life... but now –now, Raditz surely was just as deadly and experienced of a hunter as he was a martial artist and warrior. Adding that single achievement to the already outstanding, extraordinary strength that he already possessed as a member of the Saiyan race, and there you had it –a being that knew exactly where it had to strike at in order for the greatest damage to be inflicted upon its quarry and less blood to be produced, which would in turn spoil the meat in done otherwise. The elderly warrior that was Gohan could easily tell without a single doubt in mind that it had taken only a single blow being thrown the salmon's way for Raditz to finish off his quarry and gain his supper, granting the two martial artists their long-awaited dinner for the night.

"Alright Raditz, dinner is now ser…" The voice of Gohan began to cry out in anxiety to begin, opening the back door of his cottage to state the complete obvious to his student and adoptive grandson, the only thing in the entire world that possessed the capability to stop the Saiyan from his training exercises –the precious announcement that one of the most important meals of the day, dinner… or any meal to be completely honest… had been prepared and now stood awaiting his worthy presence. However, before the Earthling could even fully complete his statement, the longhaired martial artist that was Raditz had already found himself sprinting through the door much like an Olympian track star through the final homestretch of a 400 meter dash, his enhanced Saiyan sense of smell having already picked up the fragrant smell of the perfectly smoked salmon, one of his favorite and long-awaited entrees. Having closed the distance of dewed blades of grass is merely two seconds, Raditz had already found his seat at the dining table and –just like always –the adolescent Saiyan had already taken to begin to proudly stuff his face with the smoky, tenderized meat of his very own quarry at a superhuman rate –one that could and would put even the quickest of the world's competitive eaters to shame. "…ved," The elderly Earthling finished, a slight grin making itself known as he shook his head at the thought of Raditz having already smelt the elegant fragrance of the delicacy from a mile away and then some before he had even opened the door to alert him.

Gohan was nowhere near surprised at the phenomenal rate at which the young man that he called his grandson and student had been gobbling down plate after plate of smoked salmon, almost entirely due to the fact that after nearly an entire decade of baring witness to said act, he had honestly grown completely accustomed to and fully aware of the strange habits that the boy's nearly wiped out race, the Saiyans of Planet Vegeta, partook in –from their extreme love of training and fighting to their terrifyingly spectacular and unreal appetites and eating patterns. Of course, he had been completely blown away… stupefied when he had first witnessed it first-hand. Who else wouldn't be completely bewildered at the sight of a six year old Raditz having eaten an entire five-course meal on his own on just the single night in which he had lived alongside Gohan, but now he knew very well that the young Saiyan was capable of stuffing himself completely and eating much more than the average Earthling family could eat at their hungriest combined… and still have room for a plate or two of leftovers –even on the incredibly rare occasion in which Raditz himself stated that he was honestly not 'all that hungry'. If it hadn't have been for the nearly infinite quantity of fresh meat that the both of them had at their disposal from the numerous species of animals found in the resourceful forest areas of the Mount Paozu regions in which they lived, along with the vegetable garden that Gohan had grown for the both of them, he was absolutely sure as could be that the two of them would have gone completely bankrupt due solely because of the necessary task of purchasing groceries years ago.

In only a matter of seconds, the raven haired Saiyan had already found himself completely finished with most, if not all, of the smoked salmon that had been placed upon his plate, now licking the greased dish completely clean of leftover scraps with his tongue. Finishing the task he had put himself to, Raditz immediately reached over the Blackwood table, viciously snatching another slab of hickory meat off from the giant, smoked salmon that had been gutted, cleaned, and smoked even while it registered at a size much larger than even Raditz himself was, measuring a solid eight feet in length at the very least. After another couple of minutes or so, filled with the same ole procedure of munching out… devouring every last meaty inch of the 'King of the Creek', crunching on the smoky goodness that the meal brought forth for his taste buds, and the licking of salmon grease coated plates, the entire composure of fish that had once served amongst the largest of creatures in the Mount Paozu creeks now found itself rid of any and all meat that had clung to its body whatsoever, the only thing remaining of the aquatic creature that served as dinner now acknowledged as the thin, boney skeletal framework of the underwater monarch, having been stripped of all of its fleshy components, meat and all, by the two martial artists.

Raditz finished up the last of his consuming, his appetite declared 'somewhat satisfied for the time being' as the Saiyan ceased from his feast, lifting his up to stare at his mentor with a slight smile on his face. Now was the time that he had been waiting months for… another opportunity at testing his strength against the man who had taught him a great deal of everything that he now knew as a person and warrior –and there was no way that he was going to let the opportunity slip from his grasps. "So old-timer," The somewhat deep, yet very calm voice of the adolescent alien began to speak, initiating the start of a conversation between himself and his guardian for nearly a decade as his hand reached for a single paper napkin within his reach, using the material to gently wipe away all leftover scraps and grease stains that had decided to deposit themselves on the corners of his grease coated lips. "Do we still have our evening spar on the schedule for tonight once we finish our supper? Or have you created other plans for the night that do not involve getting your wrinkled ass handed to you by your student?"

Gohan, who was nothing more than a pureblooded Human compared to Raditz's own unique foreign heritage, had been enjoying his own sector of the smoldered and spiced sea creature that he called his appetizing dinner at a much slower pace than his much younger, far less experienced student had done so, continuing to lightly peck the pieces of sautéed salmon that rested on only his second plate of the water-dwelling meat apart with the use of his fork, Gohan thoroughly enjoyed each perfectly browned bite of his student's bounty that dared to touch his taste bounds, savoring each bite of the hickory smoked salmon. Glancing up at the waiting, wild-haired teenage martial artist in between stupendous bites of flavorness and golden perfection from time to time, the partially retired martial arts combatant only muttered a single word to his student, which thankfully turned out to be the very response that said Saiyan had hoped to hear spoken to him in response to the interactive question he had asked just seconds earlier in hope of partaking in a spar between two trained fighters. "Yes," Gohan silently mumbled, the word slowly flooding from his mouth between bites as he only did so much as to nod in approval as he carried on with savoring every last piece of salmon remaining on his plate.

---

Just a few short moments later, once the entirety of the hickory smoked salmon that had served as the two men's dinner had been thoroughly and completely devoured of every last drop of its edible contents, the dishes both fighters had used to hold their food cleansed of leftover pieces of bone and fish grease, the two highly experienced martial artists –master martial artists many would say –found themselves standing without disturbance in the middle of the wilderness of the Eastern District of Mount Paozu, each one of them eager and prepared to initiate another of their sparring sessions.

Both fighters stood on complete opposite sides of the flattened and cleared out field of grass that would serve its purpose as their battlefield for the match, Raditz standing an even hundred feet away from Gohan, and Gohan awaiting 1200 inches away from his opponent and student. Raditz's well-trained and healthily maintained body gradually soaked up ray after ray old the golden sun that was setting in the background, said Saiyan eagerly glaring absolute daggers at the man that would be his opponent, his eyes already locked onto the Earthling's vital weak points –mainly the jugular of his foe –as a feeling of anxiousness to begin the match that he had honestly been anticipating on partaking in for far too long already washed through his hardened veins. On his half of the soon-to-be battlefield, the waist-length haired Saiyan comfortably sported an outfit nearly identical to the Saiyan-made outfit that he wore on nearly an everyday basis, as a way to declare his Saiyan pride and bare remembrance of his eradicated race, a clean set of his insanely lightweight, yet still incredibly protective and durable Saiyan-made Battle Armor –the armored flaps of the protective covering doing their best to provide their wearer with the best protection that they could bring as the black and dull gold, armored boots that went along with the armor digging snuggly into the cushioned ground of dirt and pebbles below his feet. Thankfully, he had been smart enough to decide to keep the thin sheet of lime green colored glass that was his scouter placed neatly upon his left eye at a perfect angle, intending on using the shard of painted glass that functioned as a bit of a tracking device as a way to keep track of the speedy, agile Earthling that was Gohan –who he knew for a complete fact was one slippery bastard when it came to sparring, even if his physical appearance did not let off that interpretation… the old coon sometimes even appearing to seemingly be in two different places at once from time to time in their past matches. Gohan, on the complete opposite hand, did not necessarily don a special outfit of any kind –not that he actually felt nor had the need to do so –, instead deciding on wearing nothing more to fight his disciple than a slightly discolored white martial arts uniform that had certainly seen more days than Raditz –and certainly seen far better days –having been staying in one piece solely due to a few stitches that connected it with other aging slabs of cloth, one uniform that he had worn and trained in during his much younger days of fighting, back in his physical prime before all of the minor back and hip problems and the dreaded 'Father Time' proved to be the absolute worst of his opponents through the years. Just by one good look at the attire that the elderly martial artist had decided on wearing to partake in combat in, Raditz could easily come to the conclusion that the raggedy uniform itself was awfully close to Gohan in age –or even far beyond that… if possible, judging by exactly how tattered and worn out the cloths and stitches holding the outfit together appeared to be, along with the obvious grimy white color that the fabric seemed to have gained over the years.

Anyone who possessed even a semi-processing brain could tell just by the unpretentious look of determination bestowed upon the young Saiyan's usually stoic face that Raditz wanted –no, craved… needed –to claim this victory as his own more than anything else in the world, and that there was few things, if any, that would dare stand in the way of that single objective. There was honestly no correct way to claim the reason for this feeling… but whether it was due solely to the Saiyan blood that coursed through his veins, edging him on to be the strongest of the strong, or simply because of the thrilling excitement that the intended outcome brought onto his mind, but Raditz certainly did desire to come out as the sole victor of this spar between himself and Gohan, regardless of any and all damage or the beaten that he would have to fight his way through to ensure his victory. However, it was just as obvious that Gohan was nothing if not a mighty, challenging, and stronger opponent… so Raditz knew that this battle that he demanded of the elderly Earthling would be nothing short of an intense and hard fought one at that.

"Alright Gohan, let's begin and don't you even dare try to hold back on me… even in the slightest!" Raditz attempted to begin to explain to his preparing mentor, his tone of voice not even making an effort to hold back a great deal of the excitement and anxiousness that said Saiyan was currently going through. As far as he was concerned, the training that he had forced himself to endure through day after day and night after night was already way more than enough to allow him to be capable of at least handling the elderly Earthling, Gohan, for a fair while at the man's strongest –if not the capability to outright best his superior in battle from the get-go. "I know for an absolute fact that you and I both know that I've improved more than enough to be capable of handling you at your best, so don't even try to bring up that crap again! I'm not that little child that doesn't know the difference between a jab and a cross, I'm capable of fighting neck-to-neck with the best of them… even you. Hell, even if you do somehow manage to injure me in the worst way possible, I still see it as a win-win situation… all that I'll have to do is heal up and I'll become much stronger when I manage to recover!" The strangely gleeful –for once –voice of Raditz carried on, trying his best to persuade the passive combatant that was Gohan to go all-out on him in this little match of theirs. He was a Saiyan, strongest warrior race in all of the universe… he deserved a challenging opponent that would push him to his limits and even beyond them each time around –but no, Gohan was much too concerned for his 'safety' and would never even think of using more power than needed to fight him with, never even once pushing the young warrior to the max and to the point where he could not even stand after a battle, let alone see his skin through the blood and bruises. An opponent that would not hesitate to blow out a good chuck of his shoulder and then some if he allowed them the opportunity to do so, that was exactly what he needed in place of a soft mentor. Of course Frieza, amongst countless others for example, would not be all fun and games, allowing him to get away with silly mistakes like improperly guarding his left side or arm with nothing more than a 'redo'… no! They would outright take their precious time to painfully break each and every bone in that arm and hope to inflict as much pain as they possibly could to their own advantage… and so what? Raditz wouldn't even blame them for doing so, that was the purpose of a fight after all… to issue damage on your opponent in any way possible!

"No, I will not," Gohan disappointingly responded to the 'what he presumed to be' idiotic question, the elderly Human shaking his head in pure disbelief and a tiniest hint of disappointment at the Saiyan's request. He was way too powerful for the young Saiyan to fight singlehandedly… even with the new strength that he had gained after that insane training of his. It had taken years… decades for him to achieve this much strength and he was NOT going to risk Raditz's health and wellbeing just so that the boy could have a challenge and be beaten for his own entertainment… nothing on the face of the Earth was going to convince him otherwise either! "You of all people should know that I cannot and will not fight you at my full power Raditz! Try thinking for a second before you get yourself into something you can't keep up with… we both know that if I even try to, I could end up seriously harming –if not plan out killing –you within the first minute of our match!" The experienced martial artist finished, his tone of voice becoming much tenser by the second as the volume that he was speaking to his student with rose alongside his disappointment.

"B-But Gohan," Raditz began to counter, his fists clenched tightly together at the side of his body as he tried his best to contain his ever-growing anger and frustration at his mentor with frantic grunts and veins throbbing, a small stream of blood lightly dripping from the palms of his hands and onto the freshly cut blades of grass as nails dug into the skin, his eyes remaining shut completely closed as he continued with his side of the argument. "You've even said so yourself already –I'm improving much more and faster than even you had anticipated on! Well, let me prove it in battle then… remember, I'm a Saiyan! I'm not as delicate as you pathetic Earthlings! I live to take beatings and fight… it's in my genes," Raditz let out in frustration, following his response with an exaggerated sigh on his part, mainly to let off a bit of steam before the match began. In all of the years of sparring and possibly hundreds of spars that the pair of martial artists had found themselves partaking in against one another, the much stronger, more experienced warrior from Earth had never even once dared to use more than half of his maximum strength capability to take on Raditz with, not even once. Even if the elderly martial artist was to find himself at a severe disadvantage at times during one of their matches, Gohan would always try his best to hold back as much as he could bring himself to, hoping to avoid causing too much damage upon the boy that he called his adoptive grandson. Raditz however, was not very pleased or amused at the idea of an opponent, hostile or not, holding back a great deal of their full strength and power against him, and especially not if that opponent turned out to be his mentor. He was a PURE-BLOODED Saiyan, feeling the need for a great challenge here and there… even if it meant that he had an ass kicking to the pulp coming up, he still needed a challenge. Even if he was beaten to the pulp almost instantaneously in the match, it would undoubtedly prove to pay off in the long run –thankfully due to his Saiyan genetics and a little something that he and his fellow Saiyans liked to call a 'Zenkai'.

"Fuck it, let's just begin our spar before your body decides to collapse and begin to decay from old age," Raditz grudgingly scowled with the roll of his eyes, the grin that had originally been painted upon his face replaced by a cold, disappointing frown. "But know this old-timer… if you think that you're going to walk away from this match with a victory, you've got another thing coming! If you've decided on not using all of your power against me, just know that I'm just going to have to beat you until you're forced to do so!" The Saiyan barked as a cocky smirk made itself known to the public, Raditz's power increasing as he charged up to his absolute maximum, his brilliant display of purple and white flames igniting and sparking around his body as all of his power was built up as far as it could bring itself to be. "I hope you're ready old-timer," Raditz confidently finished off, gracefully engaging his body into one of his traditional fighting forms, of which he had already brought himself to have practically mastered each and every one of. This one was one which he had been taught by his father a bit before the latter's death by Frieza years ago, and it had already proven itself incredibly effective in the field of battle. This form was one that would thoroughly protect and guard a majority of Raditz's muscular body, allowing no sort of melee attack to overcome its superior defenses and bestow damage upon vital organs without putting up a challenge of its own.

"Let us do so then," Gohan responded, nodding at the Saiyan adolescent in anticipation while putting aside the obvious sass that was in the boy's voice. Not even a fraction of a second later, the elderly Human had also hunkered down into a fighting stance of his own, one of the numerous ones he had learned from his time training under the strongest of martial arts masters in all of the world… more than a few decades ago.

Without even the simplest of warnings to his fellow combatant, Raditz deemed himself the one to commence the match between the two, suddenly stepping forward to close to gap between himself and his mentor in sheer seconds. Raditz felt as his fist lashed out in front of him, a clenched and prepared punch charging directly for Gohan's completely exposed face. Allowed only a split second to spare, Gohan managed to showcase his extraordinary speed as he skillfully evaded the incoming blow, leaving Raditz's power-packed fist to swiftly and harmlessly speed past his ear, leaving behind only a great gust of chilled wind.

Before Raditz could even begin to launch another of his speedy strikes at his opponent, the skillful Gohan had already decided on going on another of his offensive spree, sending out a powerful roundhouse kick at the tailed martial artist, said strike soaring towards the Saiyan's jaw at a speed that could mock even the quickest of fighter jets. Raditz was forced to let out a painful growl as the force of Gohan's single blow carried him off of his feet, sending his body hurling through the air and smashing down on the cold, hard mound of dirt that made up the Earth. Arising, Raditz found that his grounding had already caused a slight injury on his part. Patting down his mouth, Raditz flinched in a small surge of pain as he found that his mouth was already leaking a small river of blood from a small wound he had sustained, but this did not really seem to affect the arrogant alien warrior at all, this was something that he deemed himself already too familiar with. He was a fighter, having dealt with wounds of much more severity and lethality before than a simple cut or busted lip… to him, the only thing that truly mattered in this spar was inflicting his own damage on his opponent, in this case Gohan, and coming out as the sole victor of their little match. Without another thought entering his mind, Raditz hopped back to his feet, mercilessly pouncing at his opponent at a speed unmatched by few, if any. When he had found himself within striking distance of his foe, the tailed warrior instinctively sent out an all-out barrage of kicks, punches, and claws at his aged sparring partner, longing to cause the man at least a fair amount of damage.

A smile slowly painted itself upon Gohan's face as his mind began to wander away from the fight that was taking place, taking the time that he was offered to begin thinking to himself over just how much Raditz had managed to improve over only just the last couple of months of his training. For the last year or so, the Saiyan had honestly taken his already superhuman training methods to the next level, putting himself through much more work than what many would call possible. Despite being caught off-track of the spar between himself and Raditz, the bearded martial artist was still finding it surprisingly easy to stay ahead of each of Raditz's seemingly lightning fast and well-placed strikes, proficiently dodging every single one of the incoming blows without doing so much as to lose a single breath. As the young warrior carried on with perfectly evading each of the strikes that Raditz hoped to inflict permanent damage upon him with, Gohan had to give in to himself –having come to admit that in the fairly short time in which the Saiyan adolescent had been training on Earth under his teaching from a small child to an arrogant teenager (short compared to his own training through entire decades at the very least), said Saiyan had certainly become much stronger, as well as insanely quicker, than even Gohan himself would have thought possible without decades of training. Yet, with all of the strength that the tailed individual possessed, there was still the manner that his adoptive grandson and student still carried on to fight mostly to overpower whoever it was his opponent turned out to be, unknowingly growing to become less strategic and focused as the fight prolonged. Although it seemed that he did indeed fight to become a significantly stronger warrior and much better in the long run, anybody who would grow to know the Saiyan would know that Raditz had such a temper that sometimes, it did not even seem as if that was the case whenever he was angered by an opponent. If this behavior and passion of his managed to carry on later into the Saiyan's life, Gohan knew for an absolute fact that it would one day be the death of him… the one thing that could lead to the boy's downfall –unless of course, he managed to change and take control of that inferno that he called a temper.

"Raditz, my boy… you certainly have been training hard enough to make this more than a workout for me I can give you that," Gohan exclaimed, hoping to not seem as surprised and astonished as he secretly was by the Saiyan's growing strength, the long haired alien having taken the time time to rest as he gave up on carrying on with his raining assault of punches and kicks, not a single one of which had managed to connect with their intended target in the minute or two in which they had been aggressively launched Gohan's way. Now, both of the trained combatants had taken to the skies to carry on with their battle, Raditz glaring holes into the back of Gohan's skull and Gohan studying Raditz's fighting stance looking for even the smallest sign of weakness within the flawless form as the both of them stood hovering a solid seven and a half feet above the ground as if it was absolutely nothing to say the least. "If you steadily carry on with your training… or better yet, an even more intense level, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to pass me in strength within the next few years to be honest."

Gohan's statement was suddenly inappropriately interrupted by a devastating pain making itself known in the lower regions of his jaw, a swiftly launched and power-packed jab having been sent hurling towards his face, possessing more than enough force within itself to send the elderly Earthling spiraling quickly towards the ground as if he was a meteor of some sort heading straight for the Earth. The power packed within the overwhelmingly mighty strike turned out to be more than enough needed to bury Gohan's entire body a couple of inches within the Earth's outer crust, leaving behind an entire trail of dug-up dirt and grass left in place as Gohan found himself skidding uncontrollably across the plains of Mount Paozu. When the old man finally managed to pull himself from his self-formed crater of blown away dirt and debris, Gohan was pretty astonished to see that sly smirk of Raditz's proudly glaring down at his dirtied body, a sort of a flame having been sparked within the Saiyan's stone black colored eyes with just the single hit as he never dared to take a single eye off of the recovering Human that was his opponent for even a split second. There was no doubt in his mind that the young Saiyan Warrior was definitely trying his hardest to hide back a grin of his own, sarcastically awaiting Gohan's retaliation as he slowly began to crack his muscular knuckles in anticipation.

Astonishment thrilling swept through Gohan's mind as he tried to begin to comprehend what exactly had happened as he was speaking to himself. His defenses –his well-trained and highly sharpened defenses had actually managed to have been penetrated by just a single one of his student's well-placed strikes. Hardly had he ever allowed the boy to get in a hit of his own, especially not one that could literally break his bones if it had struck him just a tad bit harder. To say that the blow had turned out to cause him a bit of pain would be the true epitome of an understatement if there ever was one –nothing short of one to put more light on the subject. Even if it was just simply a stinging aftereffect as of now, there was definitely the huge possibility that he would wake up to nothing less than a massive swollen bruise on the right side of his nose courtesy of the same blow that caused the slight stinging. There was no doubt whatsoever that the part of his training as seriously as could be if this was just a simple display of the strength that he now possessed as his own… and there was still a slight urge in Gohan's gut that this was only just a fraction of his true power and that was certainly saying something. It was honestly pretty crazy to know that if Raditz had decided on harnessing just a little bit more strength into that one punch, then there was certainly bound to have been a geyser of blood spewing from his nose or he would've been knocked completely unconscious or even worst, dead meat. Who knew, there was certainly the chance that Raditz would force him to use a solid seventy-five percent of his full power for once –if push came to shove… and that really was something that Gohan had not counted on until Raditz reached the age of twenty-five at the very least. If he had actually unknowingly allowed Raditz to gain an upper hand –a completely unguarded strike –on him then that meant but one thing and one thing only… he was definitely getting up there in age!

"Come on old man… I was at the very least half-expecting you to remember all those things that you taught me all those years ago! Don't tell me old age's taking its toll already," Raditz sarcastically teased, mockingly exclaiming his statement to his mentor and caregiver, doing his best Human impression as his unforgiving and calculating eyes rolled complete circles in their socket at the flabbergasted look painted upon said Earthling's face. This right here… this was what the true definition of actual happiness was according to the Saiyan vocabulary –the act of proving an opponent wrong and inflicting true damage upon one deemed stronger than you. Just the satisfyingly worthwhile feeling that your heart picked up upon seeing said opponent's astonished, completely gasping expression was nothing short of music to Raditz's ears to say the absolute least. Having spotted just a slight opening within Gohan's tightly protective defensive stance, Raditz had decided on taking the risk of being sucker punched to try his luck at issuing out some serious damage of his own for once, having moved at his uttermost quickest to strike Gohan dead-on in his lower jaw region. Although he was nothing if not completely confident in his own, ever-increasing speed and highly trained agility, he had never actually expected just an ordinary jab to land firmly on its intended target, knocking away the man whom he thought would have effortlessly anticipated the incoming blow and move at an even quicker speed to easily evade the strike sent his way. Who knew… maybe the old-timer actually was beginning to lose a step or two, thanks to Father Time's meddling –Gohan's physical attributes beginning to slowly decline from his ever-growing age problem. At the age of ninety, Raditz expected nothing less than that (a broken hipbone or two would have honestly gone great for his amusement however) of a man of that age –well, an Earthling male of that age. While his great-grandfather, a Saiyan that went by the name of Lutus, had been somewhere up there in age nearing or possibly even exceeding Gohan's own before his murder, he had still trained as much as his aging body allowed him to –and though he hardly happen to go on specially assigned missions of his own –he still possessed a power level more than high enough to frighten some of the younger Saiyan recruits of the King's with just a dreadful stare on his part, with his swan white pelt of aged fur in his Oozaru transformation shining much more brilliantly than even the moon itself. "Never –and I mean never –take your eyes off of your opponent, even for a split second I'm afraid. If I was this Master Shen that you've told me oh so much about already, do you think that I would've stopped at knocking your jaw out of place, old-timer?" Raditz finished, taking the time in which he spoke to slowly lower his hovering body to the ground just a few short yards away from Gohan's recovering body, his armored, cloth-made boots burying themselves into a mound of dirt as he planted himself onto the ground.

"And I could say almost exactly the same thing to you Raditz,' Gohan almost entirely silently said to himself, his eyes immediately catching a momentary glimpse of the sleek, brown furred tail that harmlessly swayed from the teenage Saiyan's backside –almost as if the appendage itself was basically begging to be grasped and used to its owner's own disadvantage. Sure, some people would have called what it was he was thinking to do a dirty trick or unfair action but whose fault was it actually that the genetic, Saiyan-exclusive appendage had not been properly trained to withstand damage from nearly an entire year or so of instructing Raditz to completely train his tail? Even if it was not fully trained as of yet, the very least that Raditz could've done to help himself out in this match would be to at least wrap the tail around his away, protecting it from the clutches of Earthling hands… now –now, he would just have to push the idea of doing so into Raditz's mind by teaching him in a way that the Saiyan mind would surely understand more than a vocal explanation thanks to his race's unyielding, trademark love for fighting –the martial arts teaching style of bestowing pain to get a point across, the style that he did not condone using unless it was completely –one hundred and ten percent –necessary, unlike the sadistic Crane Hermit and Founder of the Crane Martial Arts Academy, Tsuru Shen.

Taking full advantage of the split second which he had been gifted with due to Raditz's constant mumbling over his proud achievement in the form of sarcastic scolding, Gohan made his move, swiftly pouncing forward like a leopard to its prey, efficiently closing the small amount of distance that stood between himself and his prey, the adolescence Saiyan. At the peak of his mighty ascent, Gohan's wrinkly –yet still quite muscly –hands managed to establish a firm grasp upon the alien warrior's swaying fur-engulfed appendage of a tail. Unfortunately, Raditz did not even have a complete second to react to what it was that had just happened before a slightly tingling sensation suddenly overtook his entire body, stopping him in place before he could unleash a smooth counterattack of his own. As if on command, Raditz felt the entirety of his body beginning to weaken more and more by the second –all of his strength being slowly sapped away from his muscles, ounce by ounce –as Gohan's grip seemed to firmly strengthen as he saw Raditz drifting closer towards fatigue by the second. Dammit –now that he thought about it, Raditz really had to admit that he should have taken probably just a little bit more time to train his nuisance of a tail instead of focusing more on his physical attributes.

Honestly, Raditz seemed to feel as literally every last drop of energy gradually slipped away from the clutches of the inner reaches of his body, the Saiyan basically instinctively shaking his head in disappointment at himself –self-loathing at his cluelessness –, no… he did not want to mess around and be defeated much too easily, without putting up much of a fight on his side –he was not going to allow that to happen! Using the last remaining strength that he could bring his depleting body to muster up for him, Raditz couldn't help but hide a suppressed grin… he had to admit –he was nowhere near the perfect match for Gohan's level of strength just yet… nowhere near being able to properly compete or even best the man in combat, no matter how hard it was that he found himself trying. Still… still he had to find some way to push through and at least give Gohan a challenge of his own in the slightest, even if it meant pushing his body towards experiencing an entirely new world of pain. Using the last ounce of strength that he could draw from his body, Raditz slowly fought his way through the tunnelway of pain that Gohan was dealing out with just the simple scrunching of hands upon the delicate makeup of highly sensitive hairs and bones that was his tail. Reaching the elderly Earthling, Raditz found himself barely able to cock his arm back as far as he could allow himself to do without fainting from fatigue, quickly driving the limb forward to send out a fist packed with just enough power invested within itself to strike deep into Gohan's sternum, knocking the Human away for what was the second or third time in this little match and theirs and thankfully –for the sake of Raditz's incredibly slim chances of coming out as a victor in this sparring match –the martial artist's grip of Raditz's tail followed suit, loosening up to allow the intense surge of pain that the Saiyan was feeling to lessen up a bit. Having a decent chuck of his strength safely returned back to his body, Raditz hastily paced his way over to where the fallen elderly Human lied in a cloak of pain on another shield of dug up dirt. Calling this match of theirs an end for the time being, Raditz slowly placed his arm out to allow Gohan some assistance, showing off a bit of sportsmanship as he helped his mentor back to his feet with just a simple pull.

"That was very much an exciting match on your part Raditz… I'm even going to admit that I might have had to use a little bit more of my power that I had originally anticipated on showcasing," The delicate, calming voice of Gohan stated as the elderly Earthling was helped back to his feet by his only student, the tattered uniform that he had taken to wear for the match now hoisting a couple of newly-added rips and holes thanks to said student and his ferocity in battle. Along with that, his martial arts uniform had also definitely earned itself a place in the newest washing load as it seemed to have not only picked up a few new shreds within its fabric, but also an entirely new second layer of dirt from collision with the cold, hard ground one too many times. Being completely honest, it would never really take a genius to know whenever it was that Raditz was happy –however rare that occasion occurred that is –so it didn't take more than one simple glimpse to the Saiyan's usually stoic-at-all-times face to see that Raditz was noticeably attempting to hold back a smile… of some kind as he was praised for his hard work in combat. He honestly did deserve the praise –there had actually been times during the match in which Gohan had actually thought himself to be done for once and for all… times where he thought that he would finally be tested and bested by Raditz in the art of battle. "That surely did get the juices flowing and my bones a thrill for once in the past year Raditz… but on another note young man, you need to keep training that tail of yours if you really do want to overcome that weakness of yours. If I had squeezed it just a tad bit more than I was bringing myself to, you would've been done for… until that tail is fully trained –it will become nothing more than a liability to you in any fight."

"Come on old-timer! Don't you think that I'm fucking trying my best?" Raditz angrily grumbled, frustratingly shooting back an answer as he deemed himself nothing if not irritated by the man's words. He had practically heard what the Human had to say more than enough times to remember every last word by heart if it really came to that. Yeah… yeah he trained at his hardest to strengthen his tail and all –but still, this was no easy task –it definitely was not that to say the absolute least. He would undeniably love watching how it was that Gohan would deal with training something that would cause you the worst pain that you've ever felt in your life –something more painful than breaking a bone or three –each and every time that said object was grasped or restrained in any type of way whatsoever. Doesn't sound too easy, doesn't it? Oh, and let's not forget that it didn't help the fact at all that training a Saiyan's tail required a great deal of pain tolerance, stress, and patience on his part. The daily routine that he did do consisted of things that would outright kill people with low pain tolerance levels… such as performing nearly a thousand push-ups while an enormous, at the very least two ton weighing, boulder sat directly on his tail –able to downright break each and every bone in the appendage if it wasn't for the fact that he had nearly perfected control over his ki and all.

"Don't get all red on me Raditz. I know that you're trying your best Raditz… I've know you for damn near all of your life for Kami's sake! Still, I'm just trying to tell you," Gohan passively started, trying to calmly ease the raging temper that his student was known to have. Being a Saiyan, and a teenage one at that, Gohan knew for a fact that Raditz had quite the temper and hated being corrected in any way… as far as he was concerned, he was either doing incredibly great or entirely bad –nothing in between such as nice or improving. Because of this, Gohan was fully aware over the fact that the tailed warrior of a dying race could be extremely angered when given criticism of any type, though that was no excuse… every single person on the face of the planet needed criticism to grow as a person or warrior. "The quicker you remove that weakness of yours, the stronger that you will become in the long run Raditz. I know that you're not one to appreciate criticism –but think of this as constructive criticism."

"I guess old-timer," Raditz grumbled under his breath, unnoticeably rolling his eyes and shrugging his shoulders as he walked back into the cottage that he shared with Gohan. He was fully comprehendible over the fact that however angry he may be about criticism, the old man was still more right than ever… still though, he was absolutely trying his best from the earliest of the morning to the latest of night, working his ass off to remove his well-known weakness. A little praise or something for fighting through it back there would be highly appreciated to say the very least… criticism –eh, not something he preferred. "I have to admit though –although you've grown older and lost a couple of steps, you're still a decent opponent old-timer. But nevertheless, you can't even argue that I didn't knock the wind out of you this time around. Before long, I'm gonna be beating you without you even laying a single finger on me!" The Saiyan exclaimed, a sly smirk broadcasted across his face as he entered the wooden cottage that he called home. It was most certainly true, for the majority of the match –Gohan has practically had the upper hand in the match, aside from the couple of hits that Raditz got in when the old man was lost in thought… but he would never plain out tell the old-timer that… as far as he was concerned, it would only be a matter of months, weeks maybe, until he would be forced to figuratively pass the torch down to the next generation of a warrior, a Saiyan one.

Walking out of the house a few minutes later, Raditz solely chose to ignore Gohan as he marched towards his intended destination, the forest that stood mere yards in front of the cottage that he and Gohan called their wooden home. Gohan knew fully-well where he was going though… a place that he ventured at least twice a year to do some individual training of his own and reconnect with what his probably his favorite thing after fighting and eating… nature, on his month-long survival trip to train in the depths of the woods.

---

Six Months Later

Raditz peacefully attempted to catch his breath on rhythm, slowly exhaling for the final time of his meditation, having finally finished the finale of his third meditation session of the night, calmly sitting cross-legged and perfectly balanced upon a tremendous boulder located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. For what he estimated to have been the last five… probably six months or so, the Saiyan adolescent had been tranquilly training completely to himself in the middle of the 'not so dangerous' wilderness, working on the obvious with weakness that his tail brought upon him –among countless other training exercises. After only a single month of individual training out away from the supervision of Gohan or the any other signs of civilization whatsoever, instead of venturing back to the cottage that he called home as he had originally planned on himself doing after said time period, Raditz had decided that it would do much better for his training results and improvement as a whole if he elected to remain in the middle of the wilderness for just a fair bit longer… make that an extra four or five months in place of 'just a fair bit longer'. Putting his training aside for only a few short seconds or so, the raven haired Saiyan's face lightened up for the first time in what seemed to be months as he came to realize the special occasion that the incoming midnight would mark for his life… his sixteenth birthday.

"Alright, let's see… that cloud should come out of the way within the next ten minutes or so –meaning, that I could easily get in another couple hundred push-ups or so and couple dozen crunches before then," Raditz plan-out exclaimed, speaking more to himself than anyone else that might have been listening as he took to examine the midnight black colored sky of the night that spread throughout all of the Mount Paozu area, semi-translucent puffs of smoldered gray clouds covering the blanket of complete darkness that was the nighttime sky. Thousands, if not millions, of bright, glistening stars brilliantly beamed throughout all of the horizon, from the farthest corners of the Earth, making the nightfall appear to be a much more magnificent sight than anything that any city on the face of the planet could behold to its inhabitants. Honestly, this –the glorious display of beauty that the balls of light and plasma gave off for all to enjoy, was probably one of the many reasons that he really did prefer living out in the depths of nature rather than being enclosed in an overcrowded city of some kind… not that he really knew a whole lot about the inner cities of Earth or anything due to having lived out in nature for the entirety of his life on Earth. "And if it's still lingering by then… I guess that I'll just have to try out this newly developed energy attack of mines, the Saturday Crush," The Saiyan added with a sly smirk making itself known upon his facial expression as he glared into the cloud-cloaked sky, shining a bit of light upon the outstanding blast of concentrated, purple colored pure energy that he had been training himself to develop and use, improving on the newly created energy wave throughout a good chuck of his training sessions.

The Saturday Crush, as he had decided on naming the first of his highly concentrated energy attacks, was an attack in which he would focus a large amount of his ki into a single wave of energy which he would then send out at an opponent in the form of a large burst of energy more than capable enough of dishing out an incredible amount of damage –and that was putting things as lightly as one could put them. He had come up with the Saturday Crush as an attempt to hopefully gain an upper hand in the battle against Gohan –whenever the next time he would be up to sparring with him was that is –hoping to add a few tricks up his sleeve to use at his disposal against any who would challenge him to a fight, just a friendly one to the death… it mattered not. In the entirety of the six months during which he found himself doing nothing more than training, eating, and sleeping as far as he was concerned, Raditz had taken more than enough time to focus heavily on improving as many of his battle flaws as he could, managing to completely overcome the weakness that his tail brought forth, thanks mostly to the habit of sheer meditation and applying so much pressure to the prehensile appendage that as of now, it was as if he could hardly feel any pain that struck it whatsoever –no matter the amount of pressure bestowed upon the coat of brown fur.

The young, naïve Saiyan Warrior had been planning on using the dazzling Blutz Waves that would be provided exclusively by the extremely radiant, brilliant rays of pure moonlight that would normally emit during the Earth's natural satellite for as long as it remained in its Full Moon phase. Using the unphysical rays of nighttime energy and light, Raditz would hopefully be fully capable of transforming into an incredibly powerful transformation that he had heard only very little of from his father more than an entire decade ago… a transformation known simply as the Great Ape form to those unfortunate enough to be on the opposing side of the Saiyans, or the mighty Oozaru as the Ancient Saiyan Language of Saiyru called it, having been named after a mystical Saiyan legend that lived entire millenniums ago. This form was one known for its ferocity and viciousness, along with its overwhelmingly incredible level of strength and power, its strength being unmatched by nothing other than its pure ferociousness and destructive feral behavior. Although he did not find himself being fully aware of the transformation and all of its benefits and costs, the only one that really mattered to Raditz, the only fact he actually knew for a fact –was that once he managed to ascend into this superior, monstrous form of the Saiyan race, his entire strength and power level would instantaneously increase nearly tenfold of its regular limits, if not much more than that!

After another one of his quick, effortless warm-ups, about six hundred one-handed push-ups and a little bit of combat training –yeah, so what if it was a bit of a light workout but whatever, it doesn't really matter –Raditz slowly lifted himself up from the knee he had been leaning on catching his breath, glancing directly into the beautiful work of art that was the countryside night sky, the raven haired Saiyan's coal black colored eyes instantly catching sight of the object that he deemed himself fascinated with since hearing of the spherical object's association with the mystical transformation of his people. Raditz felt his eyes suddenly widen in shock as he realized that the time had finally come –the dark, gaseous cloud of moisture that had previously been blocking the giant orb of craters and compacted rocks from Planet Earth's view had finally decided to reside from its job of blocking the full view of the Full Moon, shifting away from the Earth's artificial satellite. As if on command, Raditz's stone black eyes became what seemed permanently sticky-glued to the sight of the spherical structure hovering thousands of miles from Earth's surface, the glittering moonlight glistering its way into his eyes ounce by ounce, at practically the rate of millions or zenos by the second. Raditz was suddenly put on the spot, becoming a bit uneasy over himself and his instincts over the situation that was beginning to unfold as he felt the tingling sensation that had cascaded his entire body enter his tail as the appendage began to react to the absorbed portions of moonlight and Raditz began his metamorphosis into the disastrous beast of the Saiyan legend, the Saiyan's pupils seemingly disappear from his eyes as he became somehow mesmerized by the moon's incoming Blutz Waves.

As if on absolute command –with the flick of an imaginary switch –Raditz became overcame with an entire sea of rage and ferociousness, the Saiyan's arms thrusting up to bring his gloved hands to his face to establish a light grip on the edges of his spiky hairdo as Raditz felt as literally each and every last muscle in his body enlarged by the second, doubling and even going so far as tripling in size with each passing second –the growing adolescent's size being more than enough to effortlessly snap entire oak trees in half as if they were simply twigs for him to break with just the flick of a finger. With just a single blink on his part, the Saiyan's originally coal black colored eyes were gone completely… replaced with just a single coat of a red color dark and menacing enough to mimic fresh blood, almost as if they were what represented the boy's inner rage and aggressiveness that the mighty simian form surely brought out to put on display. A thick coat of sleek and heated, matte black mixed with dark brown colored fur rapidly sprouted across all of the Saiyan's bloated body, leaving behind not a single inch of exposed, furless skin in place. Raditz howled out in ferocity and pain as he felt himself morphing, his nose and mouth morphing –elongating into the snout of a silverback gorilla and the vicious, blood-craving, and powerful jaws of the most dangerous of gorillas, an entire mouth of fanged teeth taking the place of Raditz's humanoid teeth as a devastatingly fearsome and malicious growl echoed through the newly formed snout of his, enormous globs of saliva large enough to enclose entire Human children disgustingly dripping unconsciously from the sides of the dangerously sharp and frightening golden yellow stained fangs. What was once Raditz's tail wrapped neatly around his waist was now a gigantic brown-scaled anaconda flailing pathetically behind the tower of a transformed martial artist. Along with his muscular framework and entire body, Raditz's set of Battle Armor had also grown and expanded to match the size of its wearer, showcasing off the extreme flexibility and durability of itself and all of its attachments, from the gloves to the cloth –yet still armored –boots, to Raditz.

With the Oozaru transformation finally complete and the beast released, the light grown aura that had remained cloaked around Raditz during the entirety of his metamorphosis into the enlarged primate died down, with the newly transformed Saiyan monstrosity beginning its bloodlust rampage and destructive spree, ravaging unregretably through the deep forests of Mount Paozu without a single thought on its mind besides that of causing as much havoc and destruction as it possibly could. The Great Ape searched for only a single thing amongst the wilderness… victims, in the form of defenseless forest critters to wet its teeth with, or better yet –a pathetic, unsuspecting Human to satisfy the hunger that it craved for Human blood… even if it was just a single taste of blood, this monster wanted to puncture its fangs into something… no, he needed it! Large paw-shaped gorges in the outer regions of the Earth's crust were formed as the as the giant gorilla's tremendously large and booted paws slammed their way meters into the Earth's surface, leaving behind only entire craters filled with easily snapped down without no resistance at all tree trunks and boulders crushed effortlessly under the creature's feet, thanks entirely to the sheer force and strength that Raditz possessed in this monstrosity of a transformation. Not a single object or being that deemed itself mighty and brave enough to come across the Oozaru's path would be fortunate enough to come out of their confrontation completely unscathed, unless they could run quicker than the wind and remain clear of the Great Ape's surveillance and keen sense of smell… and Raditz was sure to make sure of that.

Although the galactic martial artist from halfway across the universe had assumed that he had learned how to establish control over himself while in the transformational monstrosity that was his Oozaru through doing nothing more than engaging in extreme studying of the form and the harmless act of meditation to ease his mind, it would certainly take much more than that to obtain complete control and mastery over a form of such savagery and aggressiveness as the Great Ape transformation. Because he had never engaged in the transformation once in all of his life (at least consciously), Raditz had literally no idea whatsoever of the amount of mentality and mental control that one would need to counterattack the aggressive nature of the Oozaru. While in the dreadful, monstrous Great Ape form, a Saiyan knew nothing of the sheer anger and brutishness that the form drew its outrageous amount of strength from and brought flowing through its user bloodline and mind… enough to bring out the primal, emotionless beast within any and all Saiyans capable of transforming into such a form. With the raging, anger-fueled atrocity having been released from its sealed binds deep within the mind of Raditz himself, the mindless Saiyan needed every last bit of it… he needed the thrill of destruction and havocking through anything in its way to satisfy itself, its mouth of fangs desired to please itself with fresh blood and the taste of destruction. Anything that was deemed unfortunate enough to fall within its pathway would be forced to go through displeasure of being slowly crushed to pieces –completely destroyed –or killed and mercilessly ravaged over on first sight… and Raditz would enjoy every last second of it, regardless. With each quaking step that Raditz took, his boots slamming larger craters in the Earth's crust than those of the moon, Raditz could feel the Earth and any of its inhabitants that were in earshot of his destructive spree trembling in absolute fear at the monster that had revealed itself… shock waves flooding the surrounding area as blazing bursts of purple colored ki soared from his jawed snout, completely disintegrating and setting flames onto any tree or object that was scattered its its walkway, leaving entire portions of the wilderness set ablaze as Raditz unregretably carried on with his rampaging through the eastern Mount Paozu area without a single regard for Human life –whatsoever! The long-haired, fifty foot tall monstrosity of a Saiyan Warrior continued on his way, crushing entire tree trunks and two to five-ton boulders under just the force of his large and haired paws until finally, after a solid half hour or so of rampaging through the area that he called home along with Gohan, someone finally revealed itself unfrightened by any of its actions, deeming itself the one that would finally put an end to its disastrous acts of misconduct in the form of the elderly martial artist that was the same creature's teacher and caregiver, Son Gohan. Gohan, having heard the fearful cries and whines of slaughtered forest critters and the sound of pure destruction sweeping through the air, decided to finally emerge from his cottage and come to investigate the cause of such mayhem.

The long-haired, fifty foot tall monstrosity of a warrior continued to crush entire tree trunks under his extremely huge and hairy paws until a warrior revealed himself ready to put an end to these actions. Gohan, having heard the cries of slaughtered forest critters and the sound of pure destruction, decided to finally emerge from his cottage and investigate the cause of such mayhem.

"W-What the hell is this?" Gohan confusingly screamed out as he took only a single step outside of the cottage, emerging from his slumber in his own cottage to the disgusting smell of burning wood and the sight of completely demolished particles of stone and debris littered across the plains from just a single yard outside of his residence to as far as the horizon allowed him to see. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and this was what had kept him awoke? Looking up to glare angrily at the monstrous creature that was the sole cause of such destruction and mayhem, Gohan's eyes instantly recognized the armor that the brute turned out to be wearing over his shining pelt of brown fur. Why wouldn't he… he had basically watched over the owner of that set of Battle Armor for more than three quarters of the teenager's life, teaching him a great deal of everything that he knew, and even in the darkest of nights, he knew for an absolute fact when he saw it that the armor this monster was wearing was definitely the same exact one that he had last seen Raditz wearing. "Son Raditz… please don't tell me that you actually did transform into that devilish monkey once again! AFTER I forbid you from ever doing so ever again!" Another scream followed up, Gohan's vocal cords screeching at the top of the Earthling's lungs as said Human instinctively hunkered down lower into a fighting stance just in case the primitive beast had plans of its own.

Raditz gave no response whatsoever to his mentor's demanding questions, viewing the man that had raised him as nothing more than another of one of its victims… a thing that would soon bear witness first-hand to its wrath, a much better 'chew toy' than the forest critters that this forest had at its disposal. Deciding on gazing down at his soon-to-be victim to invoke a state of fear within its intended target's bloody, 'tasty?' heart, Raditz intuitively opened its slobber-filled snout, showcasing an entire jaw filled with golden-stained fanged teeth to Gohan as another one of his eardrum shattering, viciously terrifying to say the very least growls was let loose as a way to bestow even the smallest amount of fear into Gohan's still beating heart. However, Gohan did not move back in even the slightest way possible, merely standing his own ground as the monstrous form of Raditz stalked closer towards him –the Human's eyes never daring daring to stop piercing directly into his student's own large, emotionless, blood-stained orbs… not even going so far as to blink as he stared at his own reflection in the endless ocean of blood that was his opponent's eyes.

No more –nope, no more was the warrior that was Raditz while the raven haired adolescent was in this Oozaru form of his. Nope, there was only a ruthless, savage alien… Saiyan warrior –an emotionless, uncaring animal to be more precise. There was no longer a Raditz in this monster's consciousness, and if there was… he was now buried deep within the Great Ape's mind somewhere –Kami knows where! –with no sort of hope whatsoever of resurfacing to take reign over his mind and body until this vicious transformation of his ended at the rise of the morning's dazzling Sun. As soon as this transformation of the Saiyan race had been completed with the involvement of the Full Moon's Blutz Waves, the consciousness of the Saiyan teenager had been nearly completely boxed in, blocked from outside access by the tremendous amount of rage… anger… brutality that this monstrous form forced upon whoever it was that used it –much more of that than Raditz, just a mere child, could bring himself to put on his back and handle like a man and veteran… as of yet at the very least.

"Damn it," Gohan lowly cursed to himself, clenching his fist together in nothing more than pure frustration as he began to remember just what the guidebook that Bardock, Raditz's biological father, had sent to Earth alongside Raditz had said about the transformation that he was currently standing flabbergasted at. This was not the very first time that Raditz had been clueless enough to use this transformation –but this time around… this time around he was certainly much stronger than even Gohan himself happened to be, so now it wouldn't be as quick of a job as the last time in any way whatsoever. Gohan knew that it was only just a matter of time before Raditz's intense love of training and becoming a stronger warrior would force him to transform into this monstrous excuse for a transformation once again… better now than once he finally managed to eclipse him in strength in only his base form though. But fuck his life… right? Now, not only was Raditz much stronger than the last time Gohan had been forced to deal with him in his transformed state –during which he nearly died! –but also, the Saiyan was also much more brutal come to think of it, having grown quite the attitude and having Saiyan hormones in his bloodline this time around! Thankfully, due to his incredibly enormous size and cluelessness, Raditz's speed and nimbleness has decreased dramatically in exchange for his increased strength and power, along with his combat intelligence decreasing as his mentality and control lessened, allowing Gohan to effortlessly dodge each and every one of the slowed and sloppily thrown punches and kicks that were being unthoughtfully driven and launched his way by the beastly Oozaru that was his adoptive grandson. After a complete minute or two of straightforwardly dodging blow after blow delivered by the furred muscular statues that were Raditz's arms, Gohan had but a split second to leap out of the way of the swiftest and quickest fired of all of Raditz's strikes of the night, this one the iron-hard, swaying python… constrictor boa that was the Saiyan-exclusive tail that Raditz possessed as a member of said race, right before it would have otherwise struck him directly in the chest and more than likely shattered more than half of all of the ribs in his chest, possibly even puncturing an entire lung straight down the middle. Not giving Raditz another chance to attempt to attack him yet again, Gohan hunkered down into a clearly exposed fighting stance of his own, cupping both of his hands to the side as he began to charge an intense, blue colored sphere of concentrated and compacted ki in his now-completely cupped palms, streams of superheated light steaming off from the main composure as Gohan's eyes remained locked onto the monstrous creature before him.

Without saying another word, Gohan voluntarily released his entire handful of concentrated energy towards the raging monstrosity that he stood like an ant to, thrusting both of his arms forward as he rocketed his Kamehameha Wave at his transformed student. The extremely large amount of force and heat put into the energy wave slammed firmly into the enlarged, hairy beast of a Saiyan, burning and tearing more and more through the metallic armor that the Saiyan was wearing with each second of contact that the energy attack engaged with Raditz. Once the wave managed to die down, Gohan could tell that plenty of damage had been inflicted upon his target and that the energy attack had certainly hit its mark, with a few first-degree burns being left behind by the attack, along with smoke arising and streaming off from his body as the Great Ape slowly recovered from the blow straight to his slightly scorched chest. Before he had the time to mentally celebrate with himself, Gohan was caught completely off-guard when the massive fortress of fur, anger, and pure muscle swiftly bent down to bring his hand down to the surface level, reaching over to uncaringly grasp Gohan in his large, furred hands and lift the Human up to an height far higher than even the tallest of trees in the Mount Paozu region. Gohan hissed in an extraordinary amount of crucifying pain as his bones were slowly being literally crushed to baby powder by the gigantic ape before him, the ape's fangs baring happily in the form of a grin as the life was being squeezed entirely out of his aging, fragile body. Sweat streamed down the Saiyan's large paws, along with blood –thanks to the bones piercing through his skin as his body was compacted together –showering down the monster's arms as Gohan truly did feel his body being literally broken apart and smashed to complete pieces before his very own eyes, even going so far as to cough up a fair bit of blood as he carried on with the punishment.

'Darn it,' Gohan thought to himself, his mind clouded with only the thought of a way to escape his tormentor's grasps, even while fighting through the pain of having his entire body snapped into halves… fourths… eighths… and then some. Out of the blue, the best way to get himself out of the situation he had gotten himself into by finding Raditz's Attack Ball in the first place all those years ago. 'What was the name of that attack that Tsuru Shen used on Master Roshi all those years ago… something like the Sun's Flare…? Solar Flash? No,'

"S-Solar Flare!" Gohan managed to scream out through clenched teeth and a cough of blood-mixed saliva, his entire body continuing to be crushed to pieces and then compacted together by the titan's enormous paws. Raditz began to stagger back cluelessly, crushing entire pieces of the Earth's crust as an incredibly bright, bundled flash of pure light emitted from his master's wrinkled body in only an instant, with much more force than was needed to temporarily blind the Saiyan that was transformed into the beastly Oozaru. As Raditz's grip began to slowly loosen, Gohan could not help himself but savagely gasp for all of the air that his (possibly) punctured lungs in both despair and relief.

Thanks to the blinding Crane-based attack that was the solar-based Solar Flare supportive technique, the Earthling martial artist had been completely released from Raditz's grasp, the Human dropping to a single knee as he hoped to push himself back to his feet before Raditz came to. Raditz had been forced to stumble back a bit on the broken down tree trunks and boulders, falling back and landing extremely hard on the forest ground, causing a massive mini-earthquake that almost knocked Gohan back to a single knee hoping to recover from Raditz's brutal torturing. Knowing that the Great Ape was definitely bound to be much more than furious and just as ferocious when he managed to recover and come to, it was at that moment that Gohan had searched for and found safety in the comfort of his cottage, to avoid being detected by the menacing beastly giant primate. Honestly, there was no way at all that he could stop the raging beat without putting an instant end to Raditz's life on the spot, so for Raditz's and his own safety, it would be best just for him to stay out of the Oozaru's path for the remainder of this long night, and hopefully the Oozaru would have his way with anything other than him and his cottage… that would certainly be the best thing that could happen. As Gohan stood completely on guard, unable to fall back asleep at any time of the night, the vicious anger filled growls of the newly transformed Raditz constantly echoed through Gohan's ears as the monster had his way with Mount Paozu and all of its surrounding forest areas, only allowed to hope that the enraged monster would not be smart enough to come across his securely locked and (hopefully) protected wooden cottage throughout the rest of this violence-filled night.

---

The following morning after the catastrophe of a battle between Gohan and his inner feral self, Raditz awoke at approximately midday, judging the time estimate solely by the fact that the blazing sphere of plasma that was the Sun was now hovering directly above his head. Arising from his magnificent slumber, the Saiyan found himself loosening his body up, stretching up each and every muscle and caught off-guard by the fact that his entire body felt like it had been hit by a military battle tank. Honestly, Raditz was pretty dumbfounded by just how little it was that he remembered of the previous night following his transformation into his Oozaru form… everything leading up to that point of the evening he could remember perfectly clear but everything succeeding that turning point of the night –it was completely blank in his mind, just a white space deemed anybody's best guess. Actually though, the Saiyan could barely focus or concentrate thanks to the fact that his entire body, each and every each of nicely chiseled muscle that made up the framework of his body, was literally flooding in intense pain –as if each and every one of his bones had been slowly snapped into pieces, healed, and then broken once again. Where was he though? Where was it that he had fallen asleep…? As much as he remembered, he had basically just fallen asleep in the place he had collapsed and that somehow turned out to be an enormous gorge of dug-up dirt and rock littered in snapped tree trunks and shattered boulders.

Actually, he had found himself lying face down in the middle of one of the numerous gigantic remains of his rampage, a massive footprint that he had left behind in the now completely trampled and leveled-out field of oak trees and meadows. Something –something had certainly went down sometime in the middle of the night… but he just could not put his hands on for Kami's sake! The only thing that could come to mind involving the situation that had went down the previous night was just… maybe a few vague and clearly unimportant details that had bothered to return to his mind as he awoke –a vicious roar… an enormous gorilla? Gohan… yeah, Gohan was involved in the situation in some way whatsoever! Examining his badly beaten and unkempt body, Raditz found that his Battle Armor had literally been melted away from the area that had once hoisted the straps holding the armored clothing to his body in the first place all the way down to midway across his body, showcasing the Saiyan's entire exposed, slightly burned left side of his muscular chest and the slightest glimpse at one of the martial artist's abdominal muscles, entire chunks of the armor having been knocked away and burned away from existence, scorching leftovers and dents marked upon what remained of his armor as a reminder of Gohan's assault on him just hours earlier, previously in the night while his entire body was unevenly coated in a layer of dust that could have easily served as a second skin. Because he had little to absolutely no control over himself while in the brutal Great Ape form of his, Raditz had also taken to remember very little of the events that had occurred and played out while he was in his enraged, transformed state the previous night… remembering nothing of how he had destroyed entire portions of the Mount Paozu wilderness and caused thousands, if not millions, of dollars in destruction to Mother Nature's wonderland. Talk about a hangover… am I right?

"N-No… Gohan!" Raditz silently said to himself, even going so far as to curse himself out in frustration and aggravation at himself, his head feeling like the world's most dangerous nuclear bomb preparing itself to blow. His little hangover was certainly bringing back slight flashes of the incident, small parts of the events that had occurred during the night rapidly beginning to flood the young Saiyan's mind as piece-by-piece, the entire puzzle began to make itself clear to him as time wore on. What it was that he now remembered for a fact was the altercation he had gotten into with his Human guardian during the night… a match between Human and Animal… Earthling and Beast. Honestly, the last thing that could come to mind over the entire incident was that he had nearly snapped the man into halves when it was that he had found himself ravaging mindlessly through the area near Gohan's cottage, giving not a single care over the damage that he might have been causing or for any life that had unfortunately been stripped away because of his mindless rampaging whatsoever! There was no way… wasn't there? There was no way that he had actually killed Gohan was there? Gohan was an intelligent man… one who was fully capable of protecting himself in even the most critical of situations so there was no way that he would have allowed himself to have been taken out by a mindless monkey… yeah! By the time he found his way back to the cottage that he shared with Gohan, everything would already be tidied up and Gohan would just be sipping on a cup of his freshly brewed, sweet green tea… right?

Arising from his bed of stones and debris, the deep canyon that he had previously created with just a single step with his own, extremely large and dangerous primate foot just hours earlier in the night, Raditz found himself practically soaring towards his guardian's cottage as quick as his burning legs could bring him to move, hoping that both the wooden structure and the man that lived in said structure had been fortunate enough to have been left perfectly intact and physically unharmed in even the slightest of ways during the night in which he went to work over the Mount Paozu region. This… that was the only place that he had ever literally grown up from a boy to a teenager while learning a number of great things! Gohan was to him what these Earthlings referred to as a 'best friend' or a 'pal', honestly Gohan was the only Human that he had ever interacted with during his time on Earth… the one who had looked after him through it all, from his unruly childhood throughout even the devastatingly disastrous and awkward teenage years that his Saiyan hormones had to bring.

After he had spent more than half of an entire hour searching the area for signs of life and signs of the cottage that he called his home, the young Saiyan slowly stumbled across a large pile of snapped wood… scattered debris, shattered glass and other –now broken –items that he knew without a single doubt had once combined to make up Gohan's wooden cottage… his home. Raditz, coming to realize the only cause of the cottage's complete and utterly destruction, immediately brought a hand to his face, silently cursing himself out in both Saiyru and English at the discovery. It was because of him… it was all his fault that the house was now just a simple pile of trash and debris! There was no other logical explanation for it! This was the only one… he had come across the cottage sometime during the night while transformed and, thanks to having no sort of reasoning skills on mind whatsoever, he had uncaringly and effortlessly trampled the wooden cottage without a second thought or a single doubt… not even caring for the fact that Gohan was more than likely residing in the home while he did so. If Gohan had not have been killed by the massacre that he'd unleashed upon the area during the night, than he had certainly been killed by the splintering wood and objects measuring tons of pounds collapsing directly on top of him, if not from pure suffocation of an entire home's worth of supplies and objects having buried him alive.

Still… there was still the smallest chance that even under the island of rubble that had trapped him in his own home, Gohan was still alive –even if he was barely alive, he would still be alive… and Raditz had to cling onto that small possibility and at the very least prove it wrong before he gave up hope and began beating himself up. Approaching the pile of demolished rubble, Raditz instantly dug into and began to complete his objective, lifting each and every last piece of snapped apart wood up from the pile and throwing it out of the way, the Saiyan watching as the mountain of garbage shrunk smaller and smaller with each object that he had thrown aside. Thankfully, along the way he had managed to come across all of his indestructible by Human means Saiyan-made technology –the Rejuvenation Chamber, extra sets of Battle Armor, among countless other items –which had been reverted only back to their capsule forms when he had taken to stomp over the entire cottage in the depths of the night… but still, no sign of Gohan whatsoever. Just a few short minutes later, once his search through the pile had managed to near its closing point as he reached the near bottom of the pit of debris, the Saiyan finally managed to come across the uncaringly trampled, completely blood-soaked body of his lifeless mentor, Gohan… or at least the mangled, beaten, and slightly charred flesh that remained of the man's body that was. Raditz felt as tears began to slowly form in his coal black colored eyes, the Saiyan not even having the energy to hope to fight back against the incoming waterworks, the Saiyan's face becoming soaked in tears in just a few short minutes as he cried over the motionless, bloodied remains of his dear mentor, Gohan. H-He had killed Gohan… he had killed his teacher and grandfather! After more than nine whole years of taking care of Raditz, of Gohan treating the Saiyan like the son that he never had… he had done nothing more than pay the old Human back in only his own blood… he had unknowingly taken Gohan's life away because of his desire to transform into a Great Ape… yeah, it was entirely his fault, even if he hadn't had control over himself when he'd done it! If he hadn't insisted on transforming, than none of this wouldn't have happened… he had been the one to kill Gohan and there was no taking it back, no way to redo the damage or anything. Now, the very least thing that he could do was give the man a proper burial… one fit for a warrior at the very least.

---

Two Years Later

It was definitely nearby… there was not a single doubt in her mind about that! It had to be somewhere close, the Dragon Radar had picked up on a Dragon Ball that was within a mile of her location, meaning that she was obviously making good time. During the summer vacation that she had promised herself that she would travel the entire world in search of all seven of the mystical Dragon Balls and have her wish granted by the Eternal Dragon, she had already managed to find two of the seven magical artifacts already in only a few short days… with one more coming up by the end of the day if everything went according to plan. At the rate she was going out, she was certainly going to have the final Dragon Ball in her hand in no longer than two weeks from today… and then, the Eternal Dragon would grant her the wish that she had on her mind since she had first heard of the legend of the Dragon Balls; the perfect boyfriend for her tastes!

Stepping outside of his baby blue painted 2016 RT Dodge Challenger, Bulma brought an arm to her forehead to block out the sun's glistering, yet incredibly blazing, golden rays from entering her view as she brought out the device she had made from complete scratch in only a single month to aid her in her search for the Dragon Balls, a little device she liked to call a 'Dragon Radar'. With just the simple push of a button and a 'beep' and 'peep' on the radar's part, Bulma's speculations were confirmed as true when a faint, orange dot on her tracking device suddenly beeped across the screen, right in her direction. That was definitely the third Dragon Ball that she had to add to her collection… there was no doubt about it! She had skillfully designed the radar to function as a way to detect Dragon Balls and Dragon Balls only and thanks to the faint, yet still there, electromagnetic pulse that the golden orbs gave off –it was possible for her to determine the approximate location of each and every Dragon Ball within going through the tough work of searching long and hard for each individual one. Now, with just the flick of a switch, all that she had to do was get in her car and drive to the location and find it exactly where her Dragon Radar had determined it would be… man, science certainly was a beautiful thing, wasn't it?

Bulma Brief was nothing if not a beautiful young lady. Yeah, she had (strange) naturally turquoise colored hair that she kept tied in a neat, simple French Braid and topped off with a festive red bow on top, hair that would attract eyes from miles away thanks to its exotic color, along with unwanted questions pondering if it was dyed or actually natural… but she absolutely loved her hair and she certainly wouldn't change it for the world. She was tall, but not too tall… skinny, but not too petite. She was an amazing looking young woman, blessed with nothing if not good looks with a beautiful display of ocean blue colored eyes that mimicked the calmest and most beautiful of oceans. But get just one thing straight… Bulma certainly was not just all great looks… but she was certainly not what one would expect one of the smartest youths in the entire world to look like at first mention. She was the youngest daughter of Doctor Trunks Brief, one of the smartest –if not the smartest –men on the face of the entire planet… one of the most brilliant inventors and scientists of all time, and his gorgeous wife, Panchy Brief… and while she had certainly inherited her father's intelligence and love for inventing and science, she was honestly extremely grateful and gratified that she had inherited her mother's beautiful looks rather than her father's… looks –minus the hair color of course. Not only was she amongst the smartest of females in all of the world, but thanks to the success that her father achieved as a scientist and inventor, she was also one of the richest as well… so, that meant that she certainly did have the life, being the declared heiress of her father's company, Capsule Corporations but still, there was still one thing that she craved that money could not quite buy… the perfect boyfriend.

"Great, the next Dragon Ball isn't very far! Just another fifteen minutes or so and then I'll be one step closer to my wish!" The bluenette's cheerful voice began, Bulma's aquamarine colored eyes glancing down to observe the screen of her invention before he placed it back into his pocket, getting back into her car to carry on with driving down the non-concrete road at a high speed, driving her way towards her intended location, the place where her prized Dragon Ball had to be awaiting her. Then, there would only be four more Dragon Balls left behind the Eternal Dragon could be called upon and her wish granted!

---

'Here lies Son Gohan,

July 21, Age 656 –September 1, Age 747

Husband. Teacher. Grandfather. Gave every single person a chance, even if it wound up killing him.

Gone but Definitely Not Forgotten.

O hdíêj… O dópp wú óg vûj cúá.

O'n Hújjc.'[1)

Raditz stood over the grave that he had created for his adoptive grandfather just two whole years prior, reading over the message that he had engraved with the use of his ki into the tombstone which he had created entirely by hand, as a sign of respect for his grandfather. Had it actually been two entire years since the incident already? Two years since… that one accident had occurred and his life ruined –the accident that had led to… to the death of his mentor and only friend, Gohan. Damn… it had honestly gone by in what seemed to be the blink of an eye to be completely truthful with himself.

"Gohan," Raditz began to speak, speaking as lowly as he could bring himself to be as he stood confidently over the gravesite of the man who had cared for him for years, given him a place to stay and trained him in the arts of fighting. The Saiyan could not even bring himself to look at the grave anymore, his eyes remaining completely shut and his hands, clenched into the tightest of fists at the young man's side. It wasn't as if he did this to stop himself from crying… no, he had gotten over the crying sessions that Gohan's death would bring months ago, more than a year ago, so he did not have to worry about that. No, he just couldn't stare at Gohan's grave because then… then it would be like staring at Gohan himself, staring at the man he had killed after being given everything one would ever need. Still, with his eyes closed there was still a possibility… still the possibility that he could awaken from this dream –no, this nightmare –of losing Gohan… losing the last person who he would ever want to lose once again… going through the same things he had been forced to go through coming to peace with the news of his entire family's death all those years ago when he'd first arrived on Planet Earth. To think… he had already gone a full 730 days without awakening to the sound of Gohan's 'hello' or the smell of his delicious morning breakfasts and the taste of his appetizing evening meals. Twenty-four months since he had heard constructive criticism from the man… and boy, everybody knew how much he hated criticism, but still, he'd hear as much of it as possible if it meant hearing Gohan's presence once again. Still though, there was still that intense disliking in his chest for visiting the grave that he had dug for the man he called a 'second father'… a feeling of extreme guilt one could never forget. He had created the grave for Gohan, both literally and figuratively! It was because of him that Gohan's lifeless body was in the grave for the first place… he had been the one that had ended Gohan's life two years ago today! "It's been two years already since you've been gone old-timer… yeah, two whole years. Seems like forever… doesn't it? I'm pretty sure that as much as I've managed to improve, I'm probably more than strong enough to push you to one hundred percent of your power and I'm being serious here –I'm pretty sure that I could even come out with a victory this time around! Yeah... guess what, it's the day that you said would be one of the greatest of my life, the day I turn eighteen years old and become a 'certified man,' as your Earthlings call it… so yeah, you and I both know what I'm going to do all day. Eat… train… and repeat," Raditz added, continuing on with a fake laugh as he stopped himself midsentence, turning away from the engraved stone before him with one last look at Gohan's gravestone. Yep, he was a newly turned eighteen year old… the big day as Gohan had once referred to it as. To him though, it was just another day… I mean, what was going to happen? A whole new adventure was going to begin or something? But as for now, Raditz's stomach definitely was calling something… and judging by the way that it rumbled, it was time for a little bit of birthday fish from the old creek that he and Gohan used to fish at.

---

Bulma continued her drive through the mountains of Mount Paozu, the journey leading her closer and closer towards the destination of the Dragon Ball that would be the third of her collection, another step closer to getting her wish granted by the mystical Eternal Dragon that resided within the Dragon Balls, and egging her closer to the rest of her life, unknowingly to her. The heiress of Capsule Corporations had no idea whatsoever how much her life would… could… and already had begun to change in the split second it had taken her to turn around the corner to the sight of her car driving straight towards something… a-a person carrying one goliath of a fish that towered over the person themselves! Bulma had but a fraction of a second to slam down as hard on the brakes at her foot could, making her car come to a complete stop but unfortunately for her, it had already been much too late! There was no doubt that she had hit somebody, a living person! She honestly had no idea that there were actually civilians out this far from the city… if she had have known, she would've been watching out for people, but she… she had hit somebody with a car. Were they hurt? Were they… dead?

The next thing that happened was more of a surprise than the fact that she could have honestly killed a living person. Backing up her car, Bulma was caught completely off-guard when she found that not a single sign of a body was under her car… nor any blood or remains of a body to be more precise. Still, she had seen somebody get right in her path when she'd turned the corner… she was not going blind! She had seen it with her own eyes! Looking up, Bulma was in for another shock when she saw that not only was there the person who she had seen get struck by her car… but he was also… hovering, yes hovering… in midair, without any kind of support whatsoever! Not only that, but there was not a single bruise or mark upon him, almost as if he had not been struck at all, although she had seen him get hit head-on by her car –hadn't she? Was she going delusional…? Had the heat finally gotten to her? Alright… it was official, maybe it would be for the better good if she used the Dragon Balls to wish away this craziness and wish back her sanity!

Raditz was also in for a surprise of his own, having been given nothing more than the split of a second to avoid being smashed into by nearly two complete tons of painted scrap metal in the form of the unknown 'visitor's' Dodge Challenger. Sure, it wouldn't have necessarily harmed him… but it probably would have given him a bit of a strain in his lower chest area or whatnot. However, one thing that was deeming itself quite puzzling to the young Saiyan was just one question: What was this contraption of metal… and why was it that it had taken to enter into the Mount Paozu region that he called his home? It wasn't as if the Eastern District of Mount Paozu had much to gain the interest of any visitors, nothing apart from the quiet, peaceful wilderness that he knew as a part of his life… and if that wasn't enough, in the decade and then some that he had found himself residing on this mudball that he had been sent to as a young child, he had never honestly seen or interacted with any other Earthling that had ventured out this far from the cities he had heard stories about from Gohan, aside from the elderly deceased martial artist himself. Whoever it was that had found themselves traveling out this far certainly had quite a couple of questions to answer from him. One second he had been carrying home an extremely large king salmon to take home and make for his lunch and the next second, here he was being nearly struck while off-guard by a strange metal contraption… while in nothing more than his underwear, which he usually took to fish in. Maybe there was some sort of mystical superstitious stuff going on because of this eighteenth birthday nonsense after all.

"So, you thought that you could catch me off-guard and finish me while I was unaware?" Raditz grumbled under his breath, a slightly pissed off smug present on his face as he gave his unknown assailant no time at all to attempt to strike him down once again with their wheeled mechanism. "You're going to have to try harder than that!" The Saiyan added, practically screaming out the words at the top of his lungs as he prepared himself to attack whoever it was that had failed at taking his life from him.

Bulma immediately stopped her car in place, the gasp never leaving her face as she witnessed the man come out of the collision between himself and a four thousand pound car completely unscathed in anyway whatsoever. "Y-You survived that?" The blue haired heiress of Capsule Corporations surprisingly questioned the unharmed Saiyan Warrior, unaware of the superhuman abilities that said man was capable of doing.

"So, you were hoping to run me down?" Raditz inquired with the same angered expression present on his face, venom making itself known in his spiteful voice as he readied himself into a fighting stance to combat against the terror that had invaded his territory and hoped to do away with him. "It's going to take much more than just a pathetic strike like that to do away with me!" The Saiyan viciously let out, practically growling at his opponent as his eyes remained calculating and his body posture deeming itself ready to pounce at any given second whatsoever.

Bulma did not even have a full second to begin what had gone down in just the timeframe of a single blink as once her eyes opened, the strange… half naked hunk of meat that was once standing in midair had vanished completely from sight, leaving behind not a single trace of evidence that he had even been there. Before the bluenette could begin to ponder over whether or not the man had even been there in reality, Bulma felt his body tense up as her car became much shakily and wobbly as it began to rise into the air, maxing out at the altitude of six feet into the air. The Human female's eyes widened in both astonishment and bewilderment as she finally realized what exactly was going on below her… this boy –no, err… incredibly nicely built man –was actually harnessing the strength to lift her car!

Raditz had effortlessly managed to get underneath her behemoth of a car in no time at all, the Saiyan having lifted the entirety of the woman's automobile into the air high above his head with fully extended arms with little to no effort at all, using but a fraction of the strength that he was fully capable of putting to use at any given time. "Take this and remember it the next time you try attacking me," Raditz grunted as he lifted the car just a few inches higher into the air, throwing it to the hard ground a couple of yards away from its current position, the blue Dodge smashing into the ground with a rough impact, coming down on its side with the entirety of the top half of the Challenger now completely shattered and broken to dismembered pieces of metal. "Show yourself now!" The Saiyan demanded with a fierce growl as he remained on guard, his cold black eyes never leaving their place staring at the demolished, smoking death trap that was Bulma's car.

A few seconds after the Saiyan had issued out his demand, the blue haired beauty that was Bulma found herself scurrying out out the smoking car, crawling out from the entry that the detached door of the contraption had created for her use while coughing a bit of the smoke from her system as she revealed herself to Raditz, causing the long haired Saiyan to loosen up his guard a bit, his eyes widening as he realized just how frail this opponent appeared to be… how this opponent was nothing more than a female around the same age as he, give or take a year or two.

"I-I'm sorry," The woman immediately cried out as soon as she arose to her feet from his crawl to safety, cowering as her eyes caught sight of the raven-haired Saiyan that was Raditz standing just mere feet in front of her. She was nothing if not terrified for her life at the moment… and she was sure that she was on the verge of wetting her pants in fear! Was her life coming to an end as she never once dared to severe eyesight from this superhuman being... whoever this was, he had practically lifted more than two tons above his head without showing any signs of a struggle, there was no way in hell that he was Human and if he was, he was crazy strong for a man. However, before she could say anything else to the man that might prove to be her killer, the blue-haired woman immediately realized that there was no way that she was going to go down without putting up some sort of fight. Going as fast as she could bring herself to be, Bulma immediately let out a superb battle cry of her own, reaching for and then pointing a small 9mm pistol directly at Raditz, and without warning the Saiyan in anyway whatsoever –began to let loose an entire clip of bullets onto the Saiyan Warrior. "DON'T HURT ME!"

Looking up as she carried on with rapidly and carelessly firing bullet after bullet of her firearm at the tailed martial artist, the blue haired Earthling was in for yet another surprise as she found out once and for all that not even bullets proved to have even the smallest of effects upon her intended target –with the majority of the sharpened mounds of lead merely bouncing off of the Saiyan's chiseled body as if they were rubber balls harmlessly bouncing off of a stone while… if her eyes were not mistaking her, this guy was actually managing to out-speed each and every bullet that didn't make it to harmlessly striking his body structure or just plain out… and hear her out… plain out CATCH the incoming projectiles in midair –yes, CATCH incoming bullets that seemed to speed at him quicker than the naked eye could see! Immediately after her entire clip of lead had vanquished, the turquoise French-braided haired teenager immediately felt her eyes widen in shock as her mind processed just what it was that this guy could bring himself to accomplish, Bulma instinctively found herself throwing her hands into the air in an act of surrender –it was official, this guy was surreal and definitely not your average Human being!

As the bullets whizzed past Raditz, the Saiyan did not even do so much as to dare to flinch in even the slightest ways –even when one of the numerous amounts of lead-filled shells found itself striking him directly on his body, hoping to penetrate its way through layers of hardened, well-trained skin only to fail miserably. Bullets had done absolutely nothing to harm him in just the simplest of ways, even long ago when he was still a young child… what difference what it make now –especially considering just how much he had managed to drastically improve every aspect of himself, including his speed, reflexes, and agility, in the timeframe in which he had been given to do so. If he had been an Earthling, it was almost certain that from the bullets that had managed to strike him… he would be dead meat by now, punctured all around his body by bullet wounds scarring the entirety of his unprotected body. Earthlings… though he knew very little of their culture and all, one thing that the young Saiyan did know was that they were awfully pathetic when it came to power, having to rely on such useless weapons as those weird rock shooters of theirs. The impact that the bullets made would could a slight surge of pain for maybe a fraction of a second, nothing too much as the small balls of lead could not do anything to pierce through his skin or cause any true damage to their target, sometimes even bouncing off of his bullet resilient skin.

"W-Why you?!" Raditz found himself growling out as the barrage of bullets came to a stop, Bulma having run out of ammo for the pistol she had used in an act of protection, the Saiyan's eyebrows furrowing upward to showcase Raditz's anger. Whoever this blue-haired challenger was… she had a bit of courage to attack a Saiyan head-on without any outside help, too bad she might've underestimated his strength quite a bit if she thought he would be affected by such pathetic attempts at striking him. Raising a fist to his attacker, before Raditz could bring himself to unleash any pain of his own upon the woman that had dared to attack him, the Saiyan was stopped in his tracks at he noticed that she was in no position to defend herself –the bluenette literally freaking out like a complete idiot, crying herself a complete river's worth of tears and more than likely… actually pissing her pants in fear. "L-Let me calm down just a little bit… now tell me, just what is it that you're doing here?" Raditz stuttered, throwing his hands up to showcase that he had no intent on harming the woman before him, the Saiyan's extra temper seemingly calming down as he witnessed the terrified look displayed upon the female Human's face, a look of extreme terror and fear for her life buried within those… magnificent, ocean blue colored eyes of hers.

"P-Please don't hurt me… please!" The girl pleaded for her life, keeping her extremely watered eyes on her would-be attacker as he approached him, his eyes remaining open and his arms in the air to show that he was not intending on doing her any harm. As Raditz entered the girl's reaching radius, Bulma felt her tears drying as she stared wide-eyed at the Saiyan, taking in the view of his sympathizing face at her fear… almost as if he did not hope to do her any harm at all. From a closer view at them, Bulma surely did have to admit that to go along with that nicely built hunk of chiseled marble that he called his muscular body, this mountain guy certainly did have beautiful eyes… the orbs brilliantly shining off their coal black-grey colored glory as they stared into her own aquamarine colored ones, being lost at sea in her display of blue beauty.

"I have no intentions of harming you woman," The stoic voice of Raditz said in response to the Earthling's feeble pleading for her life, hoping to reason with the female Human that stood before him. In nearly twelve whole years of living in the Mount Paozu area, this blue-haired woman was the very first of her kind –a feminine Earthling –that he had ever come across in his time on Earth, and she was nothing short of beautiful was one thought going through the Saiyan's mind… almost as if that if he had hurt her, he would have to kill himself just to protect her… strange. Lowering himself to eye level of the scrambling woman, Raditz felt his arm instinctively rise from his side to the face of Bulma, a single finger running over the warm… delicate flesh that made up the bluenette's cheek as he wiped her tears from her face, lightly dabbing his finger upon the woman's soft skin to dry the moisture from her face. "Just… tell me why it is that you've ventured out this far?" Raditz calmly questioned the blue-haired millionaire scientist heiress to her father's company.

"Alright… i-it's just, when you did that," The elegant, turquoise haired Human responded to Raditz's statement, being helped back to her feet by the new accomplice that was said Saiyan. Raditz saw as she turned her body to the permanently destroyed beyond repair junkyard of an automobile that lied in its demolished glory yards away from the both of them, its scrappiness due entirely to his display of strength. He knew where it was the bluenette was coming from, being caught completely off-guard over the fact that he had been fully capable of lifting much more than even the strongest of –untrained –Earthling bodybuilders could bring themselves to powerlift, even without doing so much as breaking a single sweat. City Humans… how clueless and oblivious they were to the art of ki and the possibilities that it brought forth to mankind. Being completely honest, the Saiyan would not even be all that surprised if this girl before him knew absolutely nothing over the arts of ki and the abilities that knowledge over it brought forth, while he… on the other hand, had been taught to have control over his ever-growing ki power since before he was even able to walk. "I-I thought I was literally done for!" The trembling, yet somewhat beginning to calm itself, voice of the blue-haired woman from Earth let out, flinching in the slightest of ways as Raditz's finger caressed her flesh in an attempt to dry her watery eyes of its tears. Raditz could see the aftermath of Bulma's tears showing up on her face, leaving behind a slightly dried trail where the waterworks had once made their mark on her face, to go along with lightly red eyes and a bit of the woman's mascara to run… regardless, she was still nothing if not a sight for sore eyes.

"It's fine… trust me, I am not going to do you any harm," Raditz spoke, grinning innocently as he turned to pick up the giant, slightly bruised giant of a fish that he had gained just minutes before his encounter with Bulma in hopes of making himself a large lunch before carrying on with his mid-afternoon workouts. If only he had decided on having stewed rabbit or smoked boar… then he wouldn't have found himself in this situation –not that he regretted it or anything, honestly… if given another shot at deciding his lunch, he would've chosen king salmon all over again without a second thought –this was certainly something new in his daily life, coming face-to-face with another inhabitant of this mudball. "I only attacked because I felt that you were hoping to run me over in that vehicle of yours, but still… you haven't answered my question yet. Why are you here woman? Usually, when you live so far from the cities, one does not really have that many visitors."

"Fine," The blue-haired beauty gave in, deciding on answering the raven haired martial artist's question on her intentions for coming out this far into the Mount Paozu areas. Who knew… there was even the slightest chance that this guy actually did know the location of the treasure that she was currently searching for. He did say that he was living out in these areas, and there was the fact that he had been heading in the direction that her Dragon Radar made evident that the Dragon Ball was in, so if everything added up –whoever this guy was… he was definitely bound to have come across the Dragon Ball in his spare time out here. Wouldn't he? "I'm looking for an object referred to as a Dragon Ball… have you seen anything like it?" Bulma added, reaching into her pocket to get out the metallic invention that was her well-designed Dragon Radar, shifting her attention to the blinking screen of said device after just the push of the button on the top of it.

"Can't say that I have or have not," Raditz shrugged, answering the bluenette's question as best as he could. In all honesty, he had absolutely no idea what it was that this Earthling was talking about… a dragon's genitals or something of the matter? However, he did know the entirety of this area like the back of his hand and if she needed help finding something out here, there was no better person to direct her in her way than him. "But if you want… we can go back to my place and after I put on some proper clothing and clean up this fish you thankfully didn't damage, we can search around this place for whatever you're looking for after a good lunch. I don't know about you but I definitely could get something to eat… it's been way more than three hours since breakfast," The Saiyan offered, holding the giant salmon by the tail as he supported it over his shoulder with a sly smirk on his face as he tried to appear not at all hostile in his attempts to charm Bulma.

"Yeah, that would be nice… it's been a couple of hours since the last time I had something to eat," Bulma gave in, her face flushing red as she scratched the back of her turquoise colored ponytail, the same smirk as Raditz appearing on her face as she looked down to the ground. "Umm… anyways, the name's Bulma. How about yours?" Bulma finished, hoping to engage in a bit of small talk to make this conversation all the less awkward that it turned out to be.

"Raditz," Raditz greeted, exchanging names with the heiress of Capsule Corporations as he turned to prepare to lead Bulma back to the place he called home. Hopefully, she would be able to keep up and NOT get lost in the beautiful wilderness that the dangerous Mount Paozu brought forth… though, he doubted anything would do her wrong, he was definitely the King of this Jungle if there was any debate over it. "Alright, try to stay close to me would you? Wouldn't want any wild boars or Tyrannosauruses to snatch you up?" Bulma heard Raditz warn her, her stomach instantly dropping and her eyes widening as he attempted to comprehend what it was she was being told. Had this guy honestly said 'Tyrannosauruses'… as in, Tyrannosaurus Rex? Dinosaurs were supposed to be wiped out, weren't they? And even if they weren't, this Raditz guy pranced about talking about them as if they did not bring an ounce of fear to his body and, judging by his own abilities… even she wouldn't bet against him in a match against a vicious dinosaur!

---

This Raditz guy… he definitely had something far beyond what he made noticeable on first impression. Even with the superhuman strength, weird ability to hover in midair, and strange outfit and behavior that he had going for him, it still seemed as if there was almost more to this than what met the eye… and that along, that was what piqued her interest in him from the second she had laid eyes upon him. His skin… man, was his skin soft when he had touched her face, wiping it from tears and his smile –it seemed warm and distant… yet all the more compassionate as if, if you witnessed him smiling, it was obviously an honor of its own and those stone grey-black colored eyes of his, enough to melt even the coldest of hearts with just a single compassionate, meaningful stare into the blanket of darkness that they were. Of course though, he was certainly not all skins and bones… but he was also not overly built –just right with every last block of perfectly chiseled marble that was his body –enough to put even Adonis to shame with his well-toned muscles… she just wanted to throw herself upo… no, she couldn't think of something so inappropriate, she had a mission –get each Dragon Ball and have her wish granted. What was the possibility of them ever meeting up again after this thing was over? Give it two days and he might even be lost from her mind… or maybe he wouldn't.

Raditz had instructed her to just how a look around the place he called home as he changed from his fishing attire into something more suitable to containing his hunk of a body (Oh Kami, what she would do with it if she couldn't contain herself!) and she had to admit, this wasn't even that bad of a place. Peaceful, well supplied, away from the stress and commotion of the city… this was definitely a spot that she wouldn't mind relaxing at to herself if the stress that the city and paparazzi brought forth someday overwhelmed her, she could see why the boy seemed to enjoy living to himself out here. Bulma was then involuntarily snapped out of her thoughts over the man she had just met only a quarter of an hour earlier, something in the distance catching her eye. Looking up, Bulma managed to make out the blur in the distance as a sort of stone monument standing three feet into the air standing tall and proud in the middle of undisturbed, open field as she motioned closer to the site.

Walking closer to the object that had managed to catch her eye, Bulma could see that it was a greyish-white colored structure made of what she assumed to be mostly –if not entirely –marble… made almost entirely by hand and chiseled by man. In front of the stone structure was a newly planted, judging by the situation of the slightly dug up dirt, flower –a single delicate, shimmering white rose… one of the most beautiful things that she had ever seen in her entire life to be completely honest. It was then that it had finally hit her… this was a grave, the marbled structure serving as a tombstone to whoever it was buried six feet under the snow white rose. Who was it? Who had been buried here? Had Raditz previously lost someone he had once lived out here with? Those were definitely the questions wondering through her mind as she stared down the gravesite. The tombstone did appear to be quite weathered in the slightest way, so it had definitely been some time since it had been created but still, the gravesite still seemed to be perfectly tended to –as if Raditz took the time to properly tend to it at least every once in a while. Looking over to the stone monument, Bulma read the message engraved upon the marble tomb to herself:

'Here lies Son Gohan,

July 21, Age 656 –September 1, Age 747

Husband. Teacher. Grandfather.

Gave every single person a chance, even if it wound up killing him.

Gone but Definitely Not Forgotten...'

That was as far as she had managed to get before she just could not go on any further, being stuck on the final line of the memorial statement written in some language that she could not bring herself to understand –even with her knowledge in Spanish, French, and Japanese. September the First, Age 747… wait, that was two years ago today! Raditz had lost someone whom he had cared a lot for two years ago today and she was more than certain that he was fully aware of what day it was. 'Grandfather'… reading over that single line, it was pretty obvious that the person he had lost was a grandfather of his, she knew how devastating that could be. She had lost her own grandfather more than three years ago, and she had cried for days before she'd come to cope with it… though even now, there was times when she'd get watery-eyed just thinking of her grandfather. The second-to-final readable line though, that was what got her; 'Gave every single person a chance, even if it wound up killing him,' what did it mean? Had that been the case of his death… trusting someone who had did him wrong? Should she ask Raditz, that was the main question on her mind now… though she was unable to elaborate on that question due to before she could even turn around, Bulma was caught completely off-guard as she felt the hand of Raditz reach down and pat itself on her shoulder, slightly scaring the bluenette as she jumped in place with Raditz making his presence known, now clad in a set of Saiyan Battle Armor.

"He was a great man and person," The voice of Raditz calmly stated, the Saiyan sighing as he cast his eyes upon the single rose planted into the gravesite of his fallen mentor. The white rose, on Planet Vegeta it was used as a sign of a final farewell to a warrior after their death, signifying the dignity and honor that the fallen warrior had went down with before it was tipped in the crimson blood of those closest to the warrior, showing that even in death, the living of them would still prove to be by their fallen comrade's side. Raditz stood in silence for a complete minute or so before he hesitantly carried on, feeling Bulma's hand comfort his own on her shoulder as he spoke of Gohan's legacy. "Gohan… he was my closest… friend, you could say. He practically raised me from the time when I was too weak to fend for myself when I first la… my parents died up until his death. Over those years, he taught me almost everything that I now know… martial arts, math… he was as good a teacher as he was a second father to me." Raditz further explained, a smile making itself known to the public as the Saiyan seemed to lighten up in the slightest of ways as he talked about just how good Gohan had been to him. Gohan was absolutely like a second father to him –having cared for him for much longer than even his actual father had been given the time to before his own death. He had been the one to teach Raditz basically everything that the teenage Saiyan now knew about the arts of fighting, to go along with basic knowledge over the Earth and things that he would need if he ever found himself venturing out into the world. While bringing back to mind all of the good times that he had been through with the now deceased Gohan happened to bring a smile upon the Saiyan's usually completely stoic and emotionless face, it definitely brought strong emotions of sorrow and pensiveness agony. Regardless of the circumstances… it was still his fault that Gohan was now amongst the dead, HE had been the one to kill him, even if he hadn't meant to do so. That was something that he would forever have to live with, something could would probably never leave his mind, even for a moment.

"I-I'm sorry for your loss Raditz," Bulma managed to say as she found herself looking down at the ground as Raditz's attention remained peeled onto the tombstone of his caregiver, not doing so much as to bat an eyelash in the opposite direction. "If you help me find whatever it is I'm searching for, as soon as I can I'll happily leave this place and never come back. I see that today isn't the best of days so I don't want to overstay my welcome."

"No… it's alright," Raditz responded, rubbing a hand over his entire face as his mood seemed to somewhat brighten up as he pushed the thought of Gohan and his death to the back of his mind for the time being. "So tell me Blue, how exactly is it that these… Dragon Balls or whatever they're called look and what it is that they do to make you want to collect them?"

"Well, the Dragon Balls look similar to this… just with a different amount of stars on them. My Dragon Radar says that one is literally right next to us right now!" Bulma squealed as she reached into the bag that rested at her side, pulling out a glimmering orange ball with two bright red stars permanently stained upon it.

"I see, it just so happens that I do have one of those things… but mine's has four stars on it." Raditz interrupted, reaching for and pulling out his own Dragon Ball, albeit with four stars on it, from his pocket. Ever since Gohan's death, the Saiyan had taken to keep the mystical orb with him most times of the day, treating it as a treasure of its own… one of the final things he had ever received from the old man in the latter's life. "Gohan gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday, three years ago today."

"Wow, you actually have one!" Bulma grinned, thoroughly admiring the Saiyan's gleaming artifact, her eyes widened as she cast her sight upon Dragon Ball three of seven of her collection. However, if what Raditz was saying was true… then this was one of the only things that he had left to remember his grandfather by… would he give it up to some random stranger or not? "I know that your grandfather gave it to you and… sorry but, can I please have it?"

Raditz smirked a bit at the girl's request, knowing that if she wanted these 'Dragon Balls', then that certainly meant that they were of some value and could achieve something pretty important. Maybe they could unlock the key to extreme strength or power… maybe they could do something beyond the imaginable. Not even Gohan knew of the legend of these Dragon Balls… and judging by the fact that he knew basically everything, then that certainly had to account to something.

"I guess, but first explain to me how these things happen to work." Raditz commanded the Human girl, juggling the mystical sphere in his hands.

"Okay, okay. There are seven total Dragon Balls you see, each with a different amount of stars on them. Legends have it that once you gather all seven of them, you have to mutter the incantation that will summon the Eternal Dragon, who will grant you any wish that you may have." Bulma explained, catching Raditz's interest in the Dragon Balls almost immediately. With a wish like that… he could have whatever it was his heart desired! He could probably bring back Gohan from the dead… or better yet, Gohan and the fallen Saiyan race!

"I must admit, that's pretty cool. Now, about my Dragon Ball, I'll let you have it on one condition… if I can tag along with you on this journey of yours." Raditz started, wanting to journey the world for strong fighters. He had nothing left for him here besides bad memories… and what the heck? He was eighteen years old and Gohan always did say that new things could come at the age, traveling the world was certain to bring something new to his eyes and a few challenges. "Also, if it's not too embarrassing or private… what exactly are you planning on using that wish for?"

"I'm going to wish for a lifetime supply of strawberries of course." Bulma smiled, half-lying to Saiyan a bit as her skin began to flush an intense shade of red at her inner thoughts. 'And the perfect boyfriend.'

"Plus, I guess you could come along with me… seeing as I need someone to protect me from bandits and all. You seem pretty strong, judging by how you were unharmed by my bullets and the damage you did to my car." Bulma added, blushing at the sight of the Saiyan's muscular body. She had to admit, the Saiyan did appear to be incredibly handsome in the weird armor that he wore. He was also quite muscular… not too overbuilt or bulky, but just right, and his spiky hair managed to finish off the look that made him look great, almost irresistible. If she knew just a bit more about the boy, she wouldn't even be surprised if she suddenly lost control of herself, tackling the boy and letting loose a barrage of kisses to the Saiyan's irresistible face while he was down.

"Sounds good to me, this should be a good adventure for me." Raditz said, a smirk easing its way onto his face. "I can manage to find some pretty strong fighters around the world and grow stronger… but first, how will we find these remaining four Dragon Balls?"

"With the help of my latest invention, the Dragon Radar, of course. It can locate the Dragon Balls, even if they are scattered across the farthest corners of the Earth." Bulma smiled, showing off the small Dragon Radar.

"Great, I guess we should be off after we finish off this giant salmon… wouldn't want good food to go to a waste wouldn't we?" Raditz said, motioning over to the smoking salmon cooking over the flame just the way that Gohan had taught him. After this meal, there would be nothing stopping him from carrying on with life and to be honest, he was already more than ready for any and all of the adventures and challenges that managed to await he and Bulma.

Power Levels

Raditz: 42 (15 years old)

59 (Base; 16 years old)

590 (Great Ape)

72 (18 years old)

Gohan: 87 (Weakened by Old Age)

Bulma: 3

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First off, thanks for all of the views, reviews, and supports you've all given me! I know that I haven't been the most active user in the past few months but that's going to change now! So, keep viewing and reviewing and I'll keep on bringing you guys some more of these delicious, new chapters. Sorry if the last piece of this chapter seemed rushed... I just did not feel like dragging on the chapter any longer than it had to be... sorry again!

Reviews and Responses from Chapter One:

JetMomonga (Guest): Will you do something with Yamcha in this story?

Response:I sure will! Unlike many DBZ writers, I will not have Yamcha flaming… at least not a lot of it. I am still questioning whether or not he should be killed by the Saibaman or not… seeing as it is a classic. I may also pair him up with a future character… review who it should be.

JetMomonga (Guest):Cool, I'd like to see Yamcha develop new techniques and such.

Maybe he could be paired with Tights from Jaco Patrolman?

Response:He surely will, seeing as I already have some ideas to improve his Spirit Ball and Wolf Fang Fist. And possibly… seeing as I don't know much about Tights or if Bulma would feel good about her sister dating her ex.

Full Power:A Raditz going to Earth story that isn't crap! XD Nice start, but I'm curious as to why Kakarot's destination was changed. Ah, we'll find out soon, hopefully. Can't wait for the next one!

Response:Ha, thanks. I absolutely enjoy your Second Chance story as well, so it's an honor. And yes, I am currently debating on whether or not I should write a small special on Kakarot later on in the story, explaining everything… if you guys want me to that is.

Son Omar:Please update

Response:Here you go!

pokeball645: Nice start, can't wait to read what happens to Raditz in his quest to protect the Earth.

Response:And I can't wait to write it all out. Hope you enjoyed this second chapter as well!

EscapeReality.98: Nice job so far… I like to congratulate you on the original idea of Raditz and Launch. I haven't read anything with a pairing like that. And you rarely see any Bulma and Goku stories

Response:Thanks! Nice job on your stories as well. And yep, Radunch or Laditz… something like that. But remember, that's a POSSIBLE pairing.

SQUALO KING:Please see this through to the end, how ever far you wish to take it

Response:Hopefully I will and I currently plan on going to the end of Dragon Ball Z (now Super) at the least and possibly DBGT… or a much better, my-version-type of GT

Zokiy:I really like this..i can tell that this story will be good n and I cant wait for more.

Response: Thanks

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What will happen next? Find out on the next chapter of Dragon Ba- I mean Raditz, an Earthly Warrior!

Translations

1) Saiyru: O hdíêj… O dópp wú óg vûj cúá. O'n Hújjc. = I swear… I will do it for you. I'm Sorry.

{Revised: January 18, 2015}